[Web4lib] CMS experience

[Steven Putt]

With the recent thread regarding the pros and cons of a CMS I thought I would
share.  Our library recently redesigned our site and now use Xaraya as our CMS.
 I am not the programmer but I worked with two programmer types and we grew
Xaraya to meet our needs "from scratch."  Xaraya made it possible for us to
make what are essentially submission forms for every type of content that a
group of 11 librarians are now able to add and use across our site.  

The forms include basic info like who created what when and who changed it
last as well as what pages the content is associated with.  At some point the
form you are filling out becomes a content object which has a type (or types)
and a category. (or categories)  It is also possible to tag content objects
however you (the creator or editor)would like.

So an example of a content object type is "Research Resource" and the category
might be "Database" or "print reference material" etc.  The goal was to
standardize our presentation of content that does not change that much and that
we all use frequently.  

As an example of this in action, our library recently partnered with our
English department to teach basic research fluency skills.  Instead of having
11 different presentations in 11 different classes of how to search the
catalog, we have re-usable English 101 content objects which each librarian
organizes their specific narrative around.

If you are following the idea of content objects so far (or even interested)
then pages are actually just associations of content objects with the only
option being how the objects display or relate to each other on the page.

Links to other pages within our site use perma-link system based on a page ID
number so we do not need to worry about maintaining them when we shuffle pages
around.  Link to pages outside of our site need to be registered and saved
within the CMS as a different kind of content object and the same for all
images.

Pages are organized in a page hierarchy which has "trees" relating the main
components or themes of our site.  Each tree has a captain who works to keep
the 'voice' of the site relatively cohesive and makes sure we aren't publishing
pages that completely stink.  An example here is that our instruction librarian
is the main person for any pages, and thus content objects, created for
specific classes while our director deals with policy pages.

I already have and could continue to go on and on.  There is still plenty of
work to do (508) and yes, CMS pages are identifiable as such, (kind of bland)
but the response from users has almost completely been positive and/or
constructive.

Probably the single biggest challenge has been keeping old school colleagues
aware of why we want to do this and then getting them to do it.

Steven Putt                     
Electronic Services Librarian
Hekman Library- Calvin College