The Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) had a legacy website that was remotely hosted and maintained by a volunteer. They wanted a more significant presence on PPLD.org and an easier interface with which to update information. The developers decided to create a new Friends site in Drupal, using RWD, CSS3, and HTML5. The plan was to…

A "user interface" is the part of an interactive system that bridges the user and the underlying functionality of the system. But people sometimes forget that the best interfaces will provide a platform to optimize the users' interactions so that they support and extend the users' activities in effective, useful, and usable ways. To look at it…

The rise of apps and mobile devices has opened the door to small, dedicated software programs that are focused on singular tasks. From the author's perspective as head of digital access and web service manager at Montana State University, these apps offered an opportunity to build a focused digital service aimed at allowing someone to enter a…

Given the pace of innovation, not only in the gadget market but in how social media is changing society, the future isn't what it used to be, which is to say, it is not that far off, out of reach, and "gee whiz" tomorrow. The planning horizon has moved closer than ever. And far-off eventualities are here and gone before you know it. In this…

Librarians are familiar with the single-line form, the consolidated index, which represents a very large portion of a library's print and online collection. Their end users are familiar with the idea of a single search across a comprehensive index that produces a large, relevancy-ranked results list. Even though most patrons would not recognize…

Resource discovery tops the charts as the foremost issue within the realm of library automation. As a new year commences, the author sees a more pressing need to accelerate the pace with which libraries deliver content and services in ways that users will find compelling, relevant, and convenient. The evolution of the web advances relentlessly,…

As a concept, the next-generation catalog (NGC) is not new to librarians, who have been wishing for better OPAC interfaces for their integrated library systems (ILSs). The NGC has been the focus of discussion for more than 5 years now, from the 2006 report of the implementation of Endeca at North Carolina State University, to Marshall Breeding's…

As e-resource systems and web coordinator for Southern Oregon University, the author is deeply involved with the university library's website. In the latest revision of this website, the author knew she needed to jazz it up a little. With screen real estate on the main page at a premium, the author hoped to use a tabbed box and an accordion-style…

This article is the fourth in a series of articles published annually by "Computers in Libraries" surveying integrated library systems and services (ILSs). The purpose of the annual survey is to enable comparison of the ILSs that are available. ILS vendors are in constant pursuit of an ever-changing, consistently vague definition of what the…

Over the last few years, there has been a wealth of materials written and presented on next-generation library catalogs. These next-generation interfaces strive to turn "standard" integrated library systems (ILSs) into more nimble and robust search platforms that offer more user-friendly 2.0 enhancements for users. Rather than abandoning…

It turns out Al Wallace got my old space at Kitsap. It's a little hovel in what we call "The Outback," the octagon furthest from the administrative offices, an easy place to hide if you're really quiet. It?s triangular in shape and somewhat awkward, but that?s what you get when an architect knits together a bunch of 5,000-square-foot octagons in a…

This article discusses the pros and cons of open source software, such as Linux. It asserts that despite the technical difficulties of installing and maintaining this type of software, ultimately it is helpful in terms of knowledge acquisition and as a beneficial investment librarians can make in themselves, their libraries, and their patrons.…

Those who work in libraries focus much of their energies on providing access to information, and major changes seen in the last decade have shown the need to be flexible in the ways that librarians approach content delivery. Library users span all the generations of information distribution mechanisms. Some prefer to receive information in their…

Today's world demands an expansive search environment. The universe of information resources is immense and is growing rapidly. The content needed for research and scholarship is dispersed among publishers, aggregators, repositories, library catalogs, e-print servers, and servers throughout the Web. Users do not want to jump from one interface to…

The last time this author wrote about open source (OS) software was in last September's 2004 issue of Computers in Libraries, which was devoted to making the most of what you have and do-it-yourself solutions. After the column appeared, she received an e-mail from David Dorman of Index Data, who believed that she had done OS products a disservice…