Organization |
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The Southeastern Library Network, a membership network of libraries and other information organizations, works in collaboration with many partners to provide leadership for cooperative action, to improve access to information, and to enable members to effectively address the region's needs for education, economic development, and improved quality of life. |
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Developer |
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Ace Web Site Builders works with clients to understand their business and collaborate with them to develop a Web site. This includes building customer relationships, providing problem resolution, and lending end user technical support and training. For each new client, Ace works hard to understand the business, meet the client's goals, and exceed expectations. |
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Challenge
Like many businesses, SOLINET does not rely on a single source for creating and editing content for its Web site. Numerous individuals throughout its member organizations have departmental responsibility for their respective section of the Web site. However, there seemed to be a disconnect causing problems and the SOLINET Web site needed major improvement:
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The current structure wasn't working. Content contributors were organizing content in a way that matched their own departmental organization, but didn't seem to match how visitors were likely to search for site information.
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Maintaining any design standards was becoming increasingly difficult.
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No back-end database was being employed to drive Web site information dynamically.
Solution |
SOLINET employed Ace Web Site Builders to redesign its Web site. Some of the more important goals of the site were:
- Improving site design and navigation
- Preserving the integrity of the design
- Allowing SOLINET to manage content
- Driving more of the site information dynamically
Ace Web Site Builders planned to use Macromedia ColdFusion as the development platform, and were excited when they found Ektron's CMS, which has all of the features and capabilities they needed. "Ektron's features—especially the Web-based editor, content management, and scalability—provided SOLINET with a dynamic solution," says Tim Spaid, President, Ace Web Site Builders. "It offers users incredible flexibility and content control."
Ektron's CMS enables content contributors to edit content—not the templates—which preserves the overall Web site look and feel. In addition, users can schedule content, and specific approval chains are set up within each department. Ace Web Site Builders also added archives to the site, where content is automatically moved to when it expires.
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Result
"Using Ektron's CMS rather than building our own solution saved us hundreds of hours of development time and thousands of dollars," says Spaid.
One example of how Ektron's CMS has improved usability is within the "What's New" section of the Web site. "We created a 'What’s New' main category and then individual departments as sub-categories," says Spaid. "A staff person in Library Preservation, for example, enters a 'What’s New' item by selecting their respective department. What is noteworthy here is the user can edit an item under the category of CE&T (for Continuing Education & Training), but it appears on the Web site under the heading 'Workshops.' As a result, staff can enter items by the more familiar department structure while the site visitor browses the news under a more recognizable heading of Workshops."
"In short, Ektron's CMS not only helped us to meet all of our goals for the Web site, but the browser-based editor and content management helped to provide a more robust solution," says Spaid. "We found a cost-effective way to extend a wonderful system without changing source code—versus trying to reinvent what would have amounted to be only a few spokes of the proverbial 'wheel.'"
Update
Ektron checked in with SOLINET in the Fall of 2004 to get an update as to how things are going. We spoke with Mischa Uppelschoten, Web Developer & Assistant database Administrator, SOLINET.
According to Uppelschoten, "The latest addition that we're expecting to put into production this year is about 1,000 pages of product descriptions that I have loaded into the CMS, that we will combine on the Web with our CRM system. With Ektron's CMS, we no longer have to worry about maintenance for a content staging server. On multiple occasions we have been able to roll back content using Ektron's CMS, so there was no need to restore any backups."
Uppelschoten continues, "We used to update content weekly, but for example, with the recent hurricanes, we were able to do that in minutes. It's been almost three years since we started using Ektron's CMS and we're pretty much coasting, adding on small things, basically reaping the benefits of our investment."
Founded in 1973, SOLINET is a non-profit membership organization serving more than 2,500 libraries of all types and sizes in ten Southeastern states and the Caribbean. Primary programs are Member Services, OCLC Services, Preservation & Access, Electronic Databases, Library Products, Digital Services, Workshops, and Consulting.
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