I’m proposing to change how I manage news about the Library (things we want to tell our users) that goes on our web pages.

Currently any news is created on the Library’s home page, on the Library’s news page and on the news RSS, using Dreamweaver. This has a number of disadvantages, including the following: the number of people who can add news is very limited, it’s very time consuming, important news can’t be put up in the weekend, we don’t have an archive of old news etc etc.

I’ve been working on a method of managing Library news on a blog. This will overcome the problems listed above, and also allow our users to give us feedback on any news item via the use of comments on the blog. It will also allow us to categorise news items and then pick out news items in different categories to be displayed automatically on specific pages. For example, we can have a category “Homepage” for items that we want to appear automatically on our home page.

I’ve got a working model of how this would work, and I’m interested in any comments, criticisms, suggestions about it.

Please look at the proposed version of the home page – identical to the existing one except in the way that news is added.

Each item under the News heading on this new page has been created automatically from the news blog. It will only ever display the 3 most recent items in the Homepage category on this page. However the More news link will take you to all the news items ever added to the blog, so it will be a running record of all news items. People will be able to add comments by clicking on the news item heading, (or the comments link) to see the full item and the comments box.

Any person with a UC login and password will be able to login and add a comment that will appear immediately. Anyone else can write a comment, but it will go through a moderation process first. Library IT will be notified of any comments so we can check them immediately and remove any that might be offensive.

There will be a wider number of people in the Library who can add items, including after-hours supervisors who will be able to add any urgent news item eg if the Library has to close, or if key resources are down. Full training will be provided to the relevant people. Anyone else will be able to email Library IT to get a news item added.

I’m really interested in your comments about this new system – whether you think it is usable, how it might be improved etc etc

Catherine Jane

I have rung Canon about the noise the staff copier is making when a print job is sent through. The job number is 831869.

Angela

A group of High school students (green school uniform) were found yesterday evening in the NE stairwell (closest to Info Services workroom). They were very noisy and a strong smell of cigarette smoke was detected. The students were asked to leave. If these students have been smoking in the stairwell, this is a serious matter.
If any Central Library staff come across these or any other students smoking inside the Library, inform Security immediately.
Helen Doidge

Reload station out of paper. Rang Copy Centre

Level one – by QD 1 (chemistry shelves). Have reported to FM