[Web4lib] can anyone suggest a service that will meet these requirements?

[John Fereira]

At 06:11 AM 12/22/2005, Petter Naess wrote:
>I wish to create a calendar of events in and invite contributors - as many
>as possible - to post event announcements events at this common site.
>I (fondly) envisage museums, libraries, think tanks, festivals, interest
>organizations, impresarios, etc. etc. eagerly announcing their events -
>seminars, concerts, conferences, performances, etc. - at this site, knowing
>that this is THE place to go to announce and learn about - goings-on in
>Norway.
>
>For a collaboration of this kind to be successful - and to foster an
>"architecture of participation" -  it is essential that the system is very
>easy to use.

It's more than that.  It's more of a social issue 
than a technology issue.  A one stop shop for 
event announcements sounds nice in theory but in 
practice what often happens is that it becomes 
yet another place to post an event announcement.

There is currently a similar project going on at 
our institution.  We've had an events calendar 
for our library system for some time but that's 
not where I receive most of my event 
announcements.  I'm on several mailing lists 
where those events are also posted so I often 
received event announcements via email. In fact, 
what happens is that someone on one of the lists 
will see the event, feel it's important that it 
be shared on another list and will forward the 
message.  So I end up receiving multiple copies 
of the announcement because I'm on several 
mailing lists.  For a lot of events there may be 
reminders as the date draws closer.  I've 
received as many as a dozen announcements for the 
same event.  If it's something I'm interested in 
I'll put it on my Oracle calendar system so I get 
a pop-up notification on my desktop at a 
specified time before the event.  I prefer that 
to getting reminders for events that I won't be 
attending.  In order for this to work event 
announcers need to use the system *instead* of 
other mechanisms, not in addition to what they're currently using.


>There are, I think, several prerequisites (below),  and I'm
>hoping someone can suggest a solution that will fit the bill. I've looked at
>blogs, wikis, collaborative software like "Writely", etc., but haven't found
>anything that meets all these needs.
>
>1. Read access should be unrestricted. Posting should be very simple and not
>require registration, merely knowledge of a common password. . This (as far
>as I know) precludes systems such as Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad, which
>require individual registration, which is off-putting for the person who
>posts to/visits the site infrequently.

What's the rationale for a password?  If it's 
being used to prevent hacking one nice approach 
is the include a field in entry screen with a 
simple math problem.  Each time the entry screen 
is rendered it dynamically produces a different 
problem and the correct answer.  For example, 
"What is 3 + 8?  The user has to type in 11 for the event to be submitted.


>2. Should have a wysiwyg interface - I fear a wiki interface will scare off
>the uninitiated.

Look at something that uses TinyMCE or HtmlArea 
(I prefer the former).  It provides rich text 
editing for textarea elements.  TinyMCE can be 
configured such that it uses a css file for 
formatting text rather than heading/bold/etc. tags.


>3. The information should be organized in discrete entries, like in a blog,
>to enable RSS syndication. Pbwiki (for example), satisfies requirement #1,
>but I can't any way of organizing the information in RSSable fashion (same
>goes for Writely).

I would add that the user that is using the 
system to learn about events should also be able 
to receive announcements via email.  For example, 
once I've gone in and set up the categories of 
events I'm interested in I don't want to have to 
revisit the site to see if there are any pending 
events every day.  An RSS feed helps someone but 
it still means I have a visit a site which renders the RSS on a periodic basis.


>4. Should be some way of categorizing or tagging events by type and topic,
>eg. seminar/political science,  concert/jazz, etc.
>
>5. be free and webbased.
>
>Although I've not been able to identify a utility that meets these
>requirements, I imagine many people might find such a creature useful - and
>am hoping that it may exist!
>
>Thanks for any suggestions!
>
>Petter Næss
>Information Resource Director
>U.S.Embassy, Public Affairs
>Drammensveien 18
>0244 Oslo
>Norway
>phone (47) 21308802
>fax (47) 22440436
>pnaess at usa.no
>http://www.usa.no
>http://ircworld.blogspot.com
>
>
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John Fereira
jaf30 at cornell.edu
Ithaca, NY