Deceptively Simple

Web 2.0 & Your Website2008 Annual Conference of the American Library Association

Docs 2.0 Preconference – 6/27/08

Changing Emphasis

• Content

• Formatting

• Updating

Content without (much) Effort

• First– Site Structure

• Include potential content for later

– Look and feel

– Page layout(s)

Fill in the Blanks

• Second– Feeds, feeds, feeds

• Blogs/microblogs• Bookmarks• Visualization Tools• Calendars• Catalogs, licensed databases

Easy to say…

• Your institutional environment is key• UMN environment

– Required look and feel– Php, with occasional javascript

• lastRSS

– Libdata content database– Hardwired access to server

UMN Data Services

Why is updating the content easy?

• Typically 3rd party commercial software– Premium on ease of use– Bookmarklets– Some Integration from product to product– Update anywhere– Pre-formatted widgets often available

Issues with 3rd Party Software

• Lots of them• No full integration, even within a single

company like Google• Innovation continually; no graceful way

to move from one to another

Sample Workflow

• Check my GReader account• Open interesting items• Add them to Diigo, which updates

del.icio.us, which is already set up to display on site

• May also add blog entry, either from Diigo or manually

McNeese State University

• Uses FrontPage for website currently– Librarian not happy with FrontPage so…

• Government Publications information via main site, wiki, blog and host of other 3rd party services

McNeese State University

McNeese State University Wiki

McNeese State University Blog

McNeese Wiki – Open Congress

Takeaway 1

• Web 2.0 tools can effectively concentrate your work time on content, rather than formatting or updating

Takeaway 2

• These are commercial products– It’s up to you to decide how to incorporate

them into your environment– Interoperability between tools depends on

likely profitability– They are out of your control

Takeaway 3

• Which tools you use and how you use them are constrained by– Your particular environment– Your desire to experiment– The kind of content you want manage

Takeaway 4

• Truly deep integration of Web x.x. into government information websites will require much more data from agencies in structured form