Hi folks,
It is very important that we make a decision regarding an on-line events calendaring system.
The current on-line calendar system requires a disproportionate amount of computer services staff time to maintain. I use the word "disproportionate" to reflect what we see on the usage statistics of the web site each month. Based on these stats, it is clear that more staff effort needs to be spent addressing issues related to the use of the webOpac and the on-line databases. These are by far the most heavily used areas of the web site.
So, what are our options for reducing computer services staff time spent on maintaining the on-line events calendar while also providing our patrons with an easy-to-use and informative on-line calendar AND accomodating the needs of staff content providers AND allowing for an edit and approval process for content?
There are currently three options being considered:
1. III Program Registration product
2. custom built on-line events calendar
3. customized 3rd party events calendar
III Program Registration
The III product can be viewed on the Westerville Public Library site or the Scottsdale Public Library site.
Advantages:
1. integrated with the catalog so searchable in the webOpac
2. registration options for limited space availability
3. conflict resolution of event locations
4. approval and editing capability of event content through a Millennium client
5. product maintenance through III
6. option to enter events far into the future
7. known cost for product and maintenance
8. adheres to microformats standards for harvesting and formatting events outside of catalog
Disadvantage:
1. III proprietary product that is constrained by their license agreement
Custom built on-line calendar
A custom built on-line calendar would look and behave similar to the Arts Resource calendaring system. It would use a SQL server database backend with a ColdFusion and HTML programmed front end.
Advantage:
1. more control over functionality and requirements
Disadvantages:
1. more control means more responsibility
2. not integrated with the catalog so there cannot be a unified search
3. unknown hidden development and maintenance costs
Customized 3rd-party events calendar
A 3rd party solution would be something like the E.vanced product (http://www.e-vancedsolutions.com/) or the Trumba product (http://www.trumba.com/connect/default.aspx).
Advantage:
1. out-of-the-box functionality
2. maintainence and updates provided as part of license agreement
Disadvantages:
1. unknown level of customizability and control
2. non-integration with catalog search
3. out-of-the-box customization that may require a lot of additional computer staff time
4. upfront cost vs. unknown hidden customization costs
Please review these options and let me know your thoughts and if there are additional advantages/disadvantages that I overlooked.
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4 comments:
I am not sure I understand this statement:
"8. adheres to microformats standards for harvesting and formatting events outside of catalog"
Q. Does this mean we can export the data on the event and/or link to it from contextually relevent webpages? Can you give an example of what this means? Also, if we ever get Encore will these events then appear as a facet/tag/format in results? If we get Aquabrowser, will Aquabrowser be able to pull these items and present them in it's interface (since it's in the catalog)?
OR does the following statement of disadvantage prohibit the Prod. Reg software from playing well with others:
"III proprietary product that is constrained by their license agreement" Can you specifiy what limitations that statement entails?Thanks much Alice.
Hi Gina,
Here is a link to more information on microformats. I spoke with Charles Mihm, a product engineer with III, at IUG about all the issues that you raise. The answer to your first question is "yes". The answer to the second question is "I don't know - I'll ask Charles if any of the Program Registration development partners are using microformats to harvest information or not". Aquabrowser is a bit iffy as it is all written in Java applets which are no longer supported by Sun and are being replaced by JavaFX. My last statement is there just so we're aware of being constrained by a 3rd party software license agreement. This will always be the case for any software that we purchase regardless of whether or not we customize it ourselves.
Microformats article link:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-microformats/?ca=dgr-lnxw01Microformats
another post regarding this thread... I'd like to clarify an issue related to the web usage statitics. It is clear that the majority of hits/visits go to the catalog every month - well over half if you include the ebrary help page (~99k out of a total of a 130K for April). The next page with the most hits is reference databases with ~7K out of a total of 130K for April. The calendar and related events pages (film, concerts, youth events, etc...) comes in third with ~5k.
These are interesting stats but don't necessarily tell the whole story. Of all the people going to the catalog and other fairly static pages on the web site, including the reference room, probably 99% of them will find something they're looking for either through a static web page, the catalog, or a research database search. In contrast, people looking for events are guarenteed of finding 0% of what they're looking for IF those pages are not maintained and up-to-date.
So, if our goal is to promote the usage of the reference databases and services while also maintaining the dynamic event pages then we need to explore some options to help us given our limited staff time. My first post proposed 3 different options to accomodate this goal.
I'm in the process of working with some trial versions of the 3rd party calendaring software and will post again with details of what I've found and some examples programmed into the wireframe.
Good words.
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