[Web4lib] Website Redesign Advice

[Alnisa Allgood]

At 11:53 AM -0500 9/19/06, Andrea Dinkelman wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'm part of a committee at Iowa State University (Parks Library) which
>is coordinating an eventual redesign of our library website.
>
>I'm curious to know the following:
>
>1. Does your library utilize a content management system? If yes, which
>product?

I'm not officially part of a library, but do work with a couple 
special content library in Madison, WI and San Francisco, CA. I 
strongly advocate the use of a CMS for any site where you want the 
content to stay fresh (updated daily, weekly, or even monthly).

I don't work for pMachine http://www.pmachine.com , but we highly 
recommend Expression Engine (EE) as both a development system and a 
content management system from the company. Within the last few 
years, we've switch all except two of our web clients over to using 
EE as a CMS.  Why, because it is also a flexible and powerful 
development system--allowing regular programmers as well as novice 
developers to create a wide array of web-based applications (for 
general use).

>2. If you created a CMS from scratch, what did you use (e.g. PHP,
>MySQL, etc.)?

We use to, but not any more. Plus, unless you have an in-house staff, 
it can get fairly expensive.

>3. Last, have any of you outsourced website design to a commercial
>designer?

We're often the nonprofit that nonprofit and public institutions 
outsource to, so those are my recommendations; from that side of the 
spectrum.

Alnisa
-- 
   .........................................
    Alnisa  Allgood
    Executive Director
    Nonprofit Tech
    (ph) 608.241.3616 (fx) 608.241.3709
    (url)  http://smart.nonprofit-tech.org
    (url)  http://www.nonprofit-tech.org
    .........................................
    transforming nonprofits through technology
   .........................................