[Web4lib] CMS or something else?

[Deborah Kaplan]

On Fri, 1 Sep 2006, Tyson Tate wrote:
> I'm a little uncertain of what you mean by this. Do you mean that
> there are WYSIWYG editors that are text-only (i.e. no markup) which
> then require someone to add the HTML (i.e. the markup)?
> 
> If that's what you mean, isn't that person supplying the markup after
> the content has been editied exactly what I mean by "gatekeeper"?
 
No, not exactly.  What I mean is that in a CMS, you can create a
page, let's call it "open hours".  You, the web designer, format
the page.  You provide the markup, the CSS, the layout.  You do
all the design.

You then give your librarians the right to change the TEXT on
that page.  The formatting is already there, but nobody has to
change it after they modify the hours.  I've been webmaster for a
library where they changed their minds about the hours about once
a day for a month, and in the absence of a CMS, I had to make
the change for them everytime.  With a CMS, I'd have just
designed the page and let them modify at will.

Ditto with a pathfinder.  You, the web designer, create and
layout the page.  You declare the formatting for something called
"MLA citation" somewhere within the system.  Then all the
reference librarian needs to do is enter a citation in plain text
and mark it up as "MLA citation" and the CMS itself (not the
librarian, and not you) provides the formatting and markup.  

No gatekeeper needed.  Just a site programmer -- who will always
have plenty to do!

-Deborah
-- 
Deborah Kaplan
Digital Initiatives Librarian
Brandeis University