WHAT IS A UNIFIED WEB PRESENCE Marshall Breeding

WHAT IS A UNIFIED WEB PRESENCE? Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides http: //www. librarytechnology. org/ http: //twitter. com/mbreeding Feb 20, 2011 Web Manager’s Academy

Workshop Goals: Explore ways to take your website to the next level, Transform Web sites from a menu that leads users into a disjointed set of content repositories and services, to a unified service delivery platform Use analytics to identify friction points on the website and in social media channels. Learn to deliver content and services to users beyond the library website through other channels like mobile and social media. Tips, techniques, and strategies to help create a seamless and “frictionless” web experience. Learn to create, deliver and repurpose high-impact content. Know how to evaluate and measure the strengths and weaknesses of your website and social media and Be prepared to positively face off with both users and stakeholders!

Expectations for the Workshop Content at multiple levels Address both advanced and novice Web managers Conceptual / Practical Interactive / Participatory Exercises – No hands-on coding

Therapy for your Library Web site Diagnosing the patient Split personalities? Schizophrenic? Fragmented? Integrated and reasonably healthy? Enlightened?

Disjointed approach to information and service delivery? Silos Prevail Books: Library OPAC (ILS module) Articles: Aggregated content products, e-journal collections Open. URL linking services E-journal finding aids (Often managed by link resolver) Subject guides (e. g. Springshare Lib. Guides) About the Library… Local digital collections ETDs, photos, rich media collections Metasearch engines All offered in separate containers

Delivering a consistent and coherent experience Look and Feel Branding / Sub-branding Parent institution – Library – Branches and departments Authentication / single sign-on Integrated Personality / non-schizophrenic Smooth over complexities on the back with more seamless presentation layer

Complex Library Infrastructure Integrated Library System Open. URL Link Resolver Digital Asset Management Systems Institutional Repositories Electronic Theses and Dissertations Electronic Resource Management Institutional / Library Web site Online Catalog Web Content Management System Authentication Services

Thinking about the User Does your library’s Web presence have a presentation layer that manages all aspects of enduser experience or does it simply hand users off from one interface to another as they muddle through your Web site?

Examples: Unified or not? Amazon. com Harvard University http: //lib. harvard. edu/ Walter Reed Army Hospital Library http: //www. wramc. amedd. army. mil/Professionals/library/ Nashville Public Library http: //www. library. nashville. org/ Phoenix Public Library http: //www. phoenixpubliclibrary. org/

Tools and Techniques Consistent branding and design Shared style sheets among applications Web content management system Integrate functionality of other components through plug-ins, widgets, Web services Avoid direct hand-offs Unified presentation framework Drupal with plug-ins Specialized library tools: Biblio. Commons, SOPAC, Axiel Arena, Infor Iguana, etc

Library Web Presence Public Interfaces: Presentation Layer Integrated Library System Library Web site Subject Guides Article, Databases, E-Book collections

Unified Search Model Search Results Discovery Index Search: ILS Data Digital Collections Web site data … Consolidated Indexes of Articles User Contributed Content

SOPAC: THE SOCIAL OPAC Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides http: //www. librarytechnology. org/ http: //twitter. com/mbreeding Feb 20, 2011 Web Manager’s Academy

General Information Open Source Discovery layer GNU General Public License GPLv 3 Originally developed by John Blyberg Ann Arbor District Library Darien Public Library (CT)

SOPAC design merge “all of the components of the user experience into a single unified interface, ” from the library’s homepage down to the individual record level and the patron preference screen. More information: Darien Library's Open Source SOPAC 2. 0 Emphasizes Patron Content http: //www. libraryjournal. com/article/CA 6591377. html

Technical Components Drupal Supports themes and templates for customization Locum Connection layer to Integrated Library Systems Insurge Data repository component Independent Social Repository Tags, comments, reviews

Examples http: //www. aadl. org http: //www. darienlibrary. org/ http: //thesocialopac. net/

RESOURCE DISCOVERY LAYER PRODUCTS Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides http: //www. librarytechnology. org/ http: //twitter. com/mbreeding Feb 20, 2011 Web Manager’s Academy

Discovery Products ytechnolog r www. libra http: // covery. pl y. org/dis

Decoupled from ILS

Discovery Interface Search: ILS Data Local Index Digital Collections Pro. Quest Search Results Meta. Search Engine EBSCOhost … MLA Bibliography ABC-CLIO Real-time query and responses

Differentiation in Discovery Products increasingly specialized between public and academic libraries Public libraries: emphasis on engagement with physical collection Academic libraries: concern for discovery of heterogeneous material types, especially books + articles + digital objects

Discovery from Local to Web-scale Initial products focused on technology Aqua. Browser, Endeca, Primo, Encore, Vu. Find Mostly locally-installed software Current phase focused on pre-populated indexes that aim to deliver Web-scale discovery Summon (Serials Solutions) World. Cat Local (OCLC) EBSCO Discovery Service (EBSCO) Primo Central Encore with Article Integration

Web-scale Discovery Search Results Consolidated Index Search: ILS Data Digital Collections Pro. Quest EBSCOhost … MLA Bibliography ABC-CLIO Pre-built harvesting and indexing

ILS Data Vanderbilt State-wide Discovery Search Results Consolidated Index Search: Digital Collections EBSCO ILS Data: Nashville Public … ILS Data: UTK ILS Data: Tinn -Share Pre-built harvesting and indexing

Web-scale Search + Federated Search ILS Data Search Results Consolidated Index Search: Digital Collections Pro. Quest … MLA Bibliography ABC-CLIO Fed Search Interim model to deal with resources not possible to harvest into consolidated index Pre-built harvesting and indexing Nonharvestable Resources

Encore Synergy Local Index Search: ILS Data Digital Collections Pro. Quest … Local Index Results EBSCOhost Local Index Results Web Services Remote Search Results … MLA Bibliography ABC-CLIO

Social Discovery Search Results Local Index Search: ILS Data Digital Collections Web site data … User Contributed Content

Some Examples Vu. Find Villanova University http: //library. villanova. edu/ Biblio. Commons http: //epl. bibliocommons. com/ Summon Dartmouth College Library http: //library. dartmouth. edu/

MAKING LIBRARY CONTENT DISCOVERABLE: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides http: //www. librarytechnology. org/ http: //twitter. com/mbreeding Feb 20, 2011 Web Manager’s Academy

Search Engine Optimization Important to ensure that unique content on your site will be findable by through search engines, especially Google General principles: clear and valuable content Optimize for real users Don’t try to game the system Good coding and metadata important

Coding for findability <title> tag: short and unique descriptive title <description> summary of content, peppered with keywords <h 1><h 2> tags lightly indexed Search engines will attempt to find key content on pages in the absence of meta tags Pages will be punished if meta tags and content are inconsistent

Article posted

HTML Source

Google Search Results