[Web4lib] RE: CMS (Content Management System)

[Caitlin Nelson]

I am also a library student and we recently chose between Drupal and Plone
(we chose Plone) for a new website I am helping to develop in the ICS
department here at Univ. of Hawaii.  My recommendations based on this
experience:

- Don't just pick a CMS based on the matrices you read on the web (though
these can be very helpful in narrowing your decision), but install at least
two and work with them for two weeks.  We initially avoided Plone ("too
steep a learning curve") and were pro-Drupal ("super easy to work with")
until we installed them both and realized that Plone simply had more of what
we wanted.

- Plone 3 is far superior to Plone 2 (we initially started with 2.5.3 and
90% of the things I thought "boy, I wish it could be like this..." were
solved - hooray! - in Plone 3) in terms of ease of use and capabilities.  If
you thought about it in the past, you should definitely reinvest some time
to check it out now.

- As a library student and an avid web-tech person, I would say: always take
the opportunity to learn something new!  But I also know from experience
that working on a "real" project is usually better than just doing something
for the sake of it.  I wonder about that CMS class - how in depth will it be
going, how many CMSs will it cover, is it basically just material you could
learn from spending a couple days reading on the web?  The real benefit will
be in how much hands on experience you get out of it, in my opinion.

Hope this helps, thanks,

Caitlin Nelson
UH LIS student

http://www.caitlinnelson.com