Thursday, December 2, 2010

It's Coming Together with CSS!

Webpage Development Progress

Home page 12/2/10

 A lot has happened with the web page since previewed here in October.  CSS has stepped up our game.  I have learned the necessity of well-coded HTML and the beauty of page manipulation with CSS.

Building a page really made it clear how helpful it is to map it out before-hand and create a template.  The real crux lies in text formatting and image sizing within the differing sections of the webpage.  It takes hours of tweaking to get the look above.

Content Management

CMS - the overall management of many webpages and content is accomplished through a content management system.  My employer (Washington County) uses Clockwork.  It saves time and money by allowing a unform look and enabling many users to make incremental changes without needing to have countless web administrators and HTML/CSS manual manipulation.

On the downside, a user may find a CMS page to be dull and lack creative user input.  There are resitrictions and limitations to what a web developer can do.  As our readings indicate:

"...most CMS software does not cater to the diverse library needs..." (Fulton, C. (2010). Library perspectives on web content management systems. FirstMonday, 15(8-2)).
Given the amount of time it has taken to personally create a webpage from scratch and the outcome I strongly believe a system-wide CMS makes sense for most libraries.
 

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