BlogJunction » Web development

Webinar on Website Accessibility

SharonS — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:00:20 +0000

Our friends over at TechSoup are offering a free webinar on website accessibility this week. Here are the details:

An Overview of Website Accessibility
Thursday, January 14, 11 am PST/ 2 pm EST
http://techsoupforlibraries.org/blog/webinar-coming-up-website-accessibility

If you’ve heard of “accessibility” and want your site to be usable for all people, but aren’t sure where to start, this webinar is for you. Mark your calendars!

Webinar: Building the Digital Branch for the 21st Century

Jennifer — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:22:26 +0000

A search for “digital branch” on your favorite search engine proves that David Lee King is one of those responsible for inserting the term into our library lexicon and into the job titles of some of today’s most innovative library leaders. He’s the author of the recently published edition of Library Technology Reports focusing on the topic and also the presenter of our next WebJunction webinar.

Join us on September 15 for Building the Digital Branch: Guidelines to Transform Your Website for the 21st Century, a webinar brought to you in special collaboration with ALA TechSource and WebJunction-Kansas.

David will present on the process his web team used at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library (KS) to transform their outdated website into a 21st century digital branch. He’ll address the differences between a website and a digital branch, and describe the redesign process – everything from the introductory planning stages of overhauling their website to the process of actually “doing stuff” at the new digital branch.

Dear Community: Open Source CMS/Intranet solutions?

Jennifer — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:28:18 +0000

Here’s a question posted in WJ’s Dear Community by member Kelley Beeson asking for suggestions about Drupal. Do you know of tools for learning more about implementing Drupal or other open source CMS/Intranet solutions?

Thanks Kelley, for an excellent question:

“So here in Allegheny County in Pittsburgh (with our 44 libraries) we’re looking into using Drupal for a staff-only kind of intranet thing. I’ve been having no luck finding any online or even geographically manageable classes – anyone know of any or know anyone who could offer one, perhaps here on WebJunction? I’ve gotten the Drupal book and have even created a minimal page, but I realize I’m a bit out-of-my-realm when it comes to inviting 100+ users to begin engaging on the site – I can only imagine all the variables that I haven’t addressed! So, just putting my query out there to the library universe!”

If you’ve got suggestions for her, post them here or in Dear Community.

And I love her idea of some training on WJ. If anyone is interested in facilitating or presenting a webinar on the topic, please contact us via the form on our Webinars page. The archive would be a great resource, for sure!

A few announcements from the staff editor

SharonS — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:12:25 +0000

Hello, I’ve got three editorial announcements to make.

First, did you see that we have a customized WebJunction toolbar now? WebJunction-Illinois and WebJunction-Connecticut got all cutting edge on us with their toolbars, and I followed their lead. This handy tool, which is very easy to download and install from Conduit, will help you find content on WebJunction, thanks to the technical brilliance of Google search. I also added quick links to those areas of WebJunction that I know are popular with y’all (and yet not always easy to find): the Events Calendar, TechAtlas, the Discussion Boards–plus all of our Community Partner sites. You can directly access your RSS feed from this toolbar as well. So once you’ve installed it and given it a try, let me know what you think. I have been using it for the past month or so and, I have to say, I love it. (Unfortunately, it is not compatible with Safari browsers, so hopefully Mac users have Firefox installed.)

Second, we often hear from our members, “I know there is so much information on WebJunction, the amount keeps growing, and I just can’t keep up with it!” Hopefully, “What’s New on WebJunction” will help you stay up to date. This monthly email digest is simply a list of links to new articles and courses that have been added to the site in the previous month. Subscribe today, and I will send out the first issue on January 16. Definitely send me your comments about that publication–I will plan to tweak it based on your thoughtful feedback.

Finally, I did a little revamp of the Discussion Boards page. I hope you will find it easier to scan the forum lists and find the subject area most relevant to your needs. Again, if you have any feedback about that work–or additional suggestions–either comment here or in the Discussion Board Support forum (formerly called “Help & Feedback”).

Oh, did I mention that I like getting your feedback, comments, and suggestions?

Question of the Week: Redesign on a Shoestring?

Jennifer — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:56:49 +0000

With little budget and no staff time, how can we build a good website?

Thanks to WebJunction member gefitz for this week’s question of the week. There’s a lot more to the question, so check it out and add your answer in the discussion topic or here, in the blog, as a comment.

If you’ve got a question you want to ask the WebJunction community or you see a good question coming in, please post it in the Question of the Week topic.