Interview With a Webmaster: CMS Use in the Athens-Regional Library System

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Natalie Wright, Digital Media Librarian at the Athens-Clarke County Library, about her knowledge of and experience with Content Management Systems (CMSs). Her current position requires her to design, update, and troubleshoot the Athens Regional Library website (covering eleven branches), and to manage the main branch’s Digital Media Center, which offers patrons a variety of digital technology classes, including Beginning Photoshop, Podcasting, Video Editing, Illustrator, and Web Design, 3D modeling and printing workshops, and occasional Makey Makey/coding projects for young adults. I e-mailed Ms. Wright my questions concerning her work with CMS and found her responses to be very insightful and personally interesting to me, as I recently worked at the Royston Public Library, a local branch of the Athens Regional Library System, and therefore have experience interacting with her regional website.

           

She began work as the library webmaster in 2007, when CMS “wasn’t quite the buzzword” that it is now. She and her boss had heard of CMSs through blogs and tech sites and wanted to use a CMS to rework their library website, despite having no prior experience using one. After researching Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla, Natalie compiled a list of desired website features and evaluated each system by creating a basic site on all three. She also mentions looking into one commercial option (name of system unknown), but ultimately decided that open-source was the best fit for her library. After discovering Drupal’s steep learning curve and more challenging workflow, and Wordpress’ inability to support the complexity level that Natalie’s website would require, she proposed Joomla, and her boss supported her decision.

Ms. Wright states that, “Joomla was the happy medium between the two (Drupal and Wordpress) with just the right amount of built-ins and a large selection of plug-ins.” She wanted a CMS that would allow staff with no coding experience to make updates using WYSIWYG; that would separate content from structure; that included built-in applications such as blogs, rss feeds, and calendars; and that supported more interactive content than simple static web pages. A more cohesive appearance and more streamlined workflow were also necessary characteristics. Joomla seemed to meet all of these important needs.

Ultimately, she is very pleased with her decision, even though, as with any new experience, there was a learning period. She says the most challenging aspect of implementing Joomla was learning CMS vocabulary: “I’m not sure of all the terminology between the different CMSs, but in Joomla you have to know what an Article, Category, Module, Plug-in, Extension, and Component are, and they are very specific terms with meaning specific to the system.  I think most of my initial research was trying to figure out what the online tutorials were referring to when they used these terms.” However, once one deciphers the language, it is easy to navigate, learn, and create with Joomla, and there is also an active online community to provide users with further system support. Additionally, she found that, to manage the complexity of her library’s site, some Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) skills were needed so that she would be free to design her own templates and to alter settings in add-ons.

Although additional skills were required in order to utilize the CMS to its highest potential, the positive results of Joomla far outweigh any setbacks due to a learning curve. Joomla satisfies all of the website needs that Natalie originally set out to meet. She is also grateful to be rid of the old site’s convoluted workflows, which involved using a CSS style sheet and tables for layout design; by using uploaded templates, Joomla eliminates worry that adding or removing features will disrupt the website layout. Finally, she also says the switch to Joomla has made the library more compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as she has received positive feedback from Talking Books Center users who access and navigate the library website using a screen-reader.

Ms. Wright was very fortunate to have had so much influence on choosing a CMS, yet she says that control of website layout, design, and content remains “sort of a give and take.” Departments have control over their own content, and to a certain extent, how it is presented. Ms. Wright offers her professional advice when requested; however, sometimes her opinions are overruled: “I just feel embarrassed about some portions of our site that I think are not user-friendly.” Furthermore, certain branches have staff “willing to be trained in updates, and they post their own calendar events and blog posts...to add their own local spin on things.” Other branches (such as the one at which I was previously employed) still prepare their local content and send it to Athens for Natalie to upload onto the website for them.

As a concluding inquiry, I asked Ms. Wright to share any additional thoughts or advice she may have for me and other current MLIS students. She replied that the web design course should become core curriculum for all MLIS students, as knowledge of web sites, user interfaces, and basic coding has become a vital part of the information profession. She also recommends the book, Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug. My interview with her was exceptionally informative, and showed me the topics covered in this course (MLIS 7505) in an applied, real-world context. Through this experience, I have gained a true appreciation for information technology and web education, no matter what area of library science one chooses to pursue.