You can help us out by completing the survey and giving us specific suggestions for what would help you. If you’ve ever complained about using ALA’s event planner (or even if you haven’t), now’s your chance to actually *do* something about it. Don’t just mutter under your breath – mutter to us. 

The survey will be open through July 19, 2009, and anyone can take it, including non-members. All of the feedback received will help us shape the new event planner, which we hope to implement for the 2010 Midwinter Meeting.

Thank you to WAC members Dave Hargett, Rebecca Jackman, Mary Popp, Jean Rainwater, and William Reed for their invaluable help with this project.

1. Website Content Management System (CMS)
   Collage, the ALA website CMS software, will be discontinued by the developers within one year.  Collage updates and support will expire within three years. WAC is taking the following steps:
   • Convene internal task force with representation from all affected units;
   • Investigate and explore options for a web content management system which is intuitive, stable, and scalable;
   • Report back progress and draft recommendations for discussion at Annual 2009.
2. Event Planner
   Members have expressed dissatisfaction with the current event planner. WAC is taking the following steps:
   • Working to implement the Event Planner in ALA Connect;
   • Will survey the membership for feedback on features and functionality during spring 2009;
   • Will report on “Event Planner in ALA Connect” progress at Annual 2009.
3. Website Content Standards
   Members report some difficulty finding things on the ALA website. Members occasionally have discovered older versions of a current web page on the ALA website. WAC is taking the following steps:
   
   • WAC is creating a task force to recommend future directions for the ALA website (meaning the website stored and maintained within the CMS); i.e. is the ALA website mainly an archive of permanent content with current content in blogs/wikis –or– is the website mainly for current information with links to other internal resources for historical documents –or– somewhere in between?
   • Task force will report recommendations to WAC by Midwinter 2010.
4. Accessibility Issues and Data Cleanup
   The ALA website has never had a full accessibility review.  ITTS staff calculate that a “full accessibility review and data cleanup” project to meet web content accessibility guidelines would take approximately ten (10) “person-years” (10 years for 1 person to do).  The code which controls display of the ALA website does not meet web standards.  With the looming need to migrate off the Collage CMS system, “clean” data is imperative to a smooth, seamless transition to a new web content management system. WAC is requesting from BARC that:
   • ALA allocate funds to perform an accessibility review at the highest priority level; and
   • ALA allocate funds to perform a data cleanup project to repair or remove non-compliant code at the highest priority level.
5. Recognition for Content Managers
   There has been a large cadre of members and staff who have undertaken the task of managing and updating content over recent years.  Without the Herculean efforts of these dedicated members and staffers, the ALA website content would not be as complete as it is. WAC is taking the following steps:
   • Formally recognize content managers for all ALA web content via several methods in relevant places within the ALA web presence.

Here are the documents we’ll be referring to during the discussion.

• 2009 Midwinter WAC Meeting Agenda – Draft (PDF, 79kb)
• 2009 Midwinter WAC Meeting Report (PDF, 97kb)
• Report from the Task Force on Electronic Member Participation (PDF, 219kb)
• Report from the Task Force on Electronic Member Participation, Appendices B-E (PDF, 108kb)
• Report from the Task Force on Electronic Member Participation, Survey Appendix (PDF, 195kb)

So there’s still a lot to do, and we’re still wrestling a bit with Drupal to make it more intuitive. Given our progress so far, we project that we’ll start alpha testing with the Website Advisory Committee the first week in October. We had several groups volunteer to beta test the site (seven, to be exact), so we hope to begin involving them before the end of October. If all goes well, we’re on track for a November soft launch.

Keep in mind that phase one is the collaborative, virtual workspace for ALA committees and an online sharing space for any communities you want to create. After we get the kinks worked out, we’ll start on phase two, which will include the professional networking pieces. That’s when things get really interesting in terms of helping you make connections with the other 65,000 members of ALA.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please ask away in the comments. See you in Anaheim soon.

Subject
The new ALA website will take a huge step in visual appeal and usability when it debuts at ALA’s Annual Conference next month. In this Website Redesign Podcast, Billie Peterson-Lugo and Michelle Frisque are interviewed by Karen Muller about their connections to the ALA site and the redesign. They discuss the process that was followed to perform the Website Usability Study, including contributions from the ALA Website Advisory Committee, which ultimately led to new information architecture and graphical design.

Program Length
13:58; 12.7 MB

And yes, it’s wack.