November 2010

1. The State Library’s Website
Upgrade (Drupal) Project:
A Status Report
Sharon Clapp
Web Resources Librarian & Would-Be
Drupalist

2. Key State Library Website Needs
• Make it easier for people to find, use & build our
web presence
• Be seen as one organization
• Leverage collaboration
• Meet changing expectations

3. Context = Changing Technologies
• Importance of agile methodologies
• User-centered design (User eXperience Design
(UX), Interaction eXperience design (IXD))
• Social web
• Ebooks

4. Context = Changing Expectations
• Economic pressures - $$$$
• Open Government/Open Data movement & the
federal directive for developing open
government
• Libraries & “digital branches”

5. What is Drupal?
• Drupal is an open-source web
content management
framework – helps to
aggregate, organize & publish
out content on the web
• It’s free, standards-based,
community-built & driven
• A tool used by many library
webmasters
• A system used by universities,
nonprofits, academics,
governmental agencies &
businesses
Just a few examples:
• The White House
(whitehouse.gov)
• New York State Senate
• New York Stock Exchange
• New York Public Library
• Denver Public Library
• Darien Public Library
• Idaho Commission for
Libraries
• Yale University
• Harvard University
(OpenScholar)
• Amnesty International
• National Institutes of Health
• The Economist
• YourPublicMedia.org
• CTMirror.org
• Thompson-Reuters

6. What does a Drupal-based website
look like?

8. Drupal’s beginnings: Open Source, GPL
It’s power = the community
A musical interlude song link

9. Specific Problems the State Library
currently faces With Its Web Presence
• Over 3,500 static html pages
• Lack of information
architecture, navigational issues
• FrontPage-based website
(FrontPage out of support from
Microsoft)
• Usability concerns per testing
• Content needs of patrons per
surveys
• Need for more integration
across web experience
• Need for “mobile” compatibility
• Ensuring accessibility
• Training
• Cost, installation & permissions
issues with licensing for client
software-based web content
creation
• Challenges in getting subject
matter experts’ knowledge
online efficiently (bottlenecks)
• Repeated information in
multiple locations = hard to
keep consistently updated
• Hard to fix issues “on the fly”
• Hard to adapt to changing
technologies
• Hard to ensure/enforce
standards when working with
multiple content contributors

10. How the Drupal migration project
Resolves our problems
• Drupal allows us to fix information
architecture
• Migration allows us to audit content
• Options for automating navigational
aids (menus, breadcrumbs, tag
clouds)
• Platform allows us to migrate site in
stages & still run old site
• Ability to prototype (fix usability
issues) throughout & after initial
migration
• Automatically adapts information to
formats (e.g., mobile)
• Can create requirements to ensure
creation of accessible content
• Documentation, videos, slideshows,
etc., already created for Drupal –
many free, nonproprietary, open
source – can be used to train staff
• No cost ($0) for licenses for editing
software (text & images)
• Content creation done in web
browser-based interface, not
machine-specific
• No limit on number of “subject
matter experts” we can involve in
content creation
• Greater efficiencies in keeping
information up-to-date
• Easy to quickly improve or fix
issues with content
• In a system, can adapt more readily
to changes in technologies &
standards (mobile)
• Can leverage tools to ensure
workflow & quality control

11. Additional project notes
• Added Value:
▫ CT State Library involved in
the “Drupal4libs” conversation,
committing to a best
practice/standard & providing
leadership for other libraries in
state on website usability
▫ Takes advantage of other
libraries’ development, training
& trouble-shooting efforts
▫ Offers opportunities to
integrate content across
systems (catalog, digital
collections, Museum inventory,
other siloed data stores) w/o
programming
• Drupal’s other strengths:
▫ Modular
▫ Empowering, community-
based
▫ Social & web2.0-native
 Blogs, RSS feeds,
subscriptions/notifications
built in
 Commenting, polling, rating,
voting built in
▫ Findable
▫ Flexible
▫ Mobile
▫ Accessible
▫ Future-proof

12. The Plan: Building a Drupal System
• Consultants from NELINET would give us the
needed expertise to meet our complex needs
• Get another server for the new system
• Cut over when most content is on the new
system, leaving classic ASP pages & systems
integration pieces for “Day 2”

13. Where we’re at
• No NELINET…
• Building the development environment “in the
cloud” to serve as basis for “Day 1” site
• Planning / requirements
• Testing modules in sandboxed stack installs
• Content work
▫ Taxonomy team, web content teams, style guide
• Choosing from over 7,000 modules to meet
requirements & “use cases”
• Lots of training
• DOIT SDM

15. What We Need to Move Forward
• We need support & removal of obstacles
• We need to harness the power of collaboration
• More learning, testing, prototyping
• Consultants??
• We need to be ok with perpetual beta (not to
worry, it’s not truly beta… just beta to us…)
• I’m shutting up & building

16. A final thought, courtesy comedian
Louis C.K. --
“Everything’s amazing, nobody’s
happy”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Thank you & Have a Great All-Staff Day!