February 26th, 2008 Brian Herzog
For the first official Swiss Army Librarian post, I wanted to mention a few things about my new home.
I upgraded from Wordpress v2.0.1 (which is what herzogbr.net/blog ran) to v2.3.3, and a lot had changed - but happily, most of the changes were for the better. The major outward change is the new theme, but my real goal was to update my code. Now, it’s all css-based, and the only code that doesn’t validate properly is the flickr badge.
It took a lot of behind-the-scenes fiddling to make this transition happen (Chris, my thank you gift on the way). On my About page I list all the plugins I’m using, and a few other technical details. I also fully explain “why Swiss Army Librarian?,” in two parts, but I’ll just summarize here:
- I’ve had a Swiss Army knife ever since college, and I use it all the time. Most people who know me couldn’t image me without it
- If I had to summarize the job responsibilities of a librarian, “swiss army knife” comes pretty close. We’ve got to be ready to handle any request that comes along, and be prepared with whatever tool is needed for the job at hand
During the migration, I found I really enjoyed playing with Wordpress plugins and pages. It has gotten me excited to start seriously using Wordpress as a CMS for a full website, and not just a blog. My library is looking to update the way we manage our website, so I’m going to be pushing and pulling Wordpress to see what it can do.
Alright, that’s that. I’d appreciate hearing what people think of the new look, and if you have any tips or tricks on using Wordpress as a CMS. And now, back to the regularly scheduled postings…
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February 22nd, 2008 Brian Herzog
I’ve been threatening this for awhile, but I finally got in gear and managed to get it done - I’ve got a new blog: the SwissArmyLibrarian.net.
The official transition day is Tuesday, Feb. 26th, 2008, so I won’t be posting anything until then. I’ll talk more about it soon, but before then, please update your feed readers to the new RSS feeds.
And stop by the new domain to take a look and let me know what you think.
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December 18th, 2007 Brian Herzog
You know how you mean to do something, and know you should do it, but you never get around to it? Well, that’s me with learning Drupal.
But my friend Kyle (that’s Kyle, in the hat) isn’t a slouch like me. He actually went out and bough a Drupal book to learn from (while I, on the other hand, sit about twenty feet away from one every day, but have yet to crack it).
Anyway: my library uses Adobe Dreamweaver to manage our website. But dealing with static html pages is cumbersome, and stands as a large barrier to getting more staff contributing (easily) to our website. So, using a tool like Drupal would be a great improvement - not just for site management, but also in usefulness for our patrons.
I’m getting there. I’m also looking at expanding our Wordpress installation, from running just our blog to containing our entire website. Or, we could use Joomla. Or Scriblio. Or Plinkit. Part of the problem is the myriad of tools to choose from.
And Kyle’s no help. He writes:
One thing that I have been looking into for one of my clients is Omeka (http://omeka.org/). Omeka is a wiki/cms solution for museums and libraries to catalog information in an online format. It is being developed at George Mason University specifically for historical institutions.
Another tool. But from what I can tell (using it is invitation only, at the moment), it is neat, and they’ve got some interesting sites running it. I’m going to watch it and see where it goes.
I know I’ve been talking about these CMS tools for awhile, but perhaps that’s what new year’s resolutions are for. We will migrate the website to a new platform by the end of 2008. Ah, we’ll see.
Oh, and one more thing: I recently read that there’s a new drupal4lib group. Maybe with a support group, it’ll actually happen.
cms, drupal, drupal4lib, joomla, kyle, libraries, library, omeka, public, scriblio, wordpress
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September 18th, 2007 Brian Herzog
Sparked by a discussion in the ning Library 2.0 forum, I recently revamped my Library’s 404 error webpage (what displays when the webpage someone is looking for is not found).
Until earlier this year, we just had the standard “404 error: file not found” page, which is common and boring. I had made it a little more interesting just by adding our logo and some helpful information. But Darlene’s call for injecting humor and casualness in this situation got me to rethink it, and I came up with our current page.
Libraries are always fighting the traditional stuffy stereotype, and little things like this can make the patron experience more interesting and memorable. Also, it really was fairly easy to do, and I think in this case, a little effort goes a long way (of course, ideally, this page would never be seen).
But let your 404 page be seen - Darlene also started a flickr Library 404 Page group, so please add your screenshots. Also, some live, non-library examples are available at sendcoffe.com.
And before anyone asks: I didn’t put too much thought into the books in the photo. This is just the shelf closest to the Reference Desk. But really, I think these titles lend themselves pretty well to the process of discovery of something missing - plus, this is the “self-help” section.
404, 404 error, chelmsford, chelmsford library, error page, librarian, librarians, libraries, library, public libraries, public library, web page, website
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September 6th, 2007 Brian Herzog
Earlier this week, the Online Educational Database released its rankings for the top 25 librarian bloggers. Although I am tops with some people, I am not tops with them. Sigh.
But don’t despair; I have a theory. As I was looking down the list, I noticed something: they all have a cool, easy-to-use name. librarian.net. LibrarianInBlack. The Travelin’ Librarian. See? Compared to them, “herzogbr.net blog : A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk” is a bit cumbersome.
PageRank? Subscribers? Pshaw. I’m convinced that if I just had a catchier name for this blog, I would be much more popular.
I had actually thought about the whole name thing a few months ago, and came up with a couple options. But a friend of mine recommended against adopting one. The logic was this: it might be counter-productive to rename an already established entity, because that would be confusing and erode whatever name recognition already existed. Which makes sense.
But now, not making the top 25-tier, well, that’s just the clincher. I’ve decided I am going to start using a new name - and redesign the entire website, as well (which I’ve been meaning to do for awhile, anyway). My goal is to design solely with style sheets, and use WordPress as a CMS, to finally move away from my oh-so-’90s static html pages with table-based layout. It’ll take a little while, but I’ll keep posting my progress.
That being said, I would like to get back to the list of top 25 librarian bloggers. First of all, congratulations to everyone on the list. Thank you for contributing to the overall library world - even Annoyed. Well… maybe.
I was also curious how my blog fared based on the metrics the OEDb used. As near as I can tell, here’s where I stand in each category:
So, with an overall score of 15, I’m really not that far out of the running - #24 and #25 both scored 17. Of course, as Jessamyn (a.k.a. #1) points out, the methodology of this study is somewhat questionable, so who knows.
Besides, there’s always next year.
blog, blogs, librarian, librarians, libraries, library, online education database, rankings, top 25 librarian bloggers
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