There’s been only one login on the old site in the last 30 days, which was an accident by someone who meant to use Connect instead. We’re not sure if anyone is still using Communities, so we need your help spreading the word. Please let your committees, discussion/interest groups, sections, etc. know about this upcoming change so that they have time to migrate any existing content they want to keep in to ALA Connect.

All content a group wants to save will need to be migrated manually before December 31, 2009. Files will not be retrievable from Online Communities after that date. If any of your groups need advice about how to do this or have specific questions, please have them contact me directly at jlevine [at] ala.org.

Thanks!
Jenny

The best place to watch for updates during that time is the AC Twitter account at http://twitter.com/alaconnect. However, we’ve integrated lighting lots of candles as an early step in the upgrade process, so we’re hoping it will go pretty smoothly. We also had some great beta testers who we think found all of the bugs so you don’t have to.

Because some of the Drupal 5 modules either don’t exist in Drupal 6 or have changed a little, a few things will be different in the new version. We’re not introducing any major new features yet, though, so you shouldn’t have to learn any major new tricks to keep using Connect the way you have been. Here are a few of the things that will be different when the site comes back online Wednesday night.

• The biggest change is to the “notifications” setup. In the current version of Connect, you go to each group to turn on email notices, unless you’ve manually set the default email preference in your profile to “send all” or “send none.” In the new Connect, you’ll have a new “subscriptions” tab on your profile where you can set all of your group email preferences from one page. Here’s a sample screenshot.

  

  In addition, you’ll be able to set a default interval for email notices so that you can receive a daily digest if that’s your preference.

  

• Your network will display by type of contact, although it will still default to “all.” Here’s a sample screenshot of how it’s broken out in the new version.

  

• A new “lock” icon appears next to “protected” content to indicate it’s not publicly viewable.

  

• For the time being, we won’t be able to include information for instant messenger accounts in your profile because that module hasn’t been updated yet, but we’re still exploring our options for returning this feature in the future (along with expanded options to include services like gTalk).

As you can see, there aren’t any major functional changes, but please let us know how the new version works for you after we flip the switch Wednesday night.

What does that mean? It means that anyone whose appointment to a committee ended on June 30, 2009, is no longer part of the roster for that committee in Connect. So if you log in and find that you suddenly don’t have access to a specific group anymore, it’s likely because your appointment has ended and new people have been added to the roster.

Conversely, if you log in and see a new committee showing up in “My ALA Groups” or on your profile, it’s probably because your appointment to that group started on July 1, 2009.

We performed some magic behind-the-scenes to make the switch happen after Annual in order to give working groups the ability to access their space in Connect during the conference, but now it’s time for the new roster to work in that space.

If you believe that an affiliation is missing from your profile in Connect or that you’re on a group you shouldn’t be on, please leave a comment here, email me at jlevine [at] ala.org, or use the contact us form on the Connect site. Even better, if you *know* you should be listed on a specific committee, contact that committee’s staff liaison (or “admin” in Connect), because that’s the person who can add you in the member database so that Connect reflects your participation.

ALA staff members who receive questions about committee appointments from members should first check iMIS to make sure the appointment dates are correct there. If you’re still experiencing problems with rosters in Connect, feel free to call or email me. In fact, it’s a good idea to check your rosters in general to make sure that they’re accurate, as we only flipped dates for appointments that ended on June 30 or began on July 1.

Questions? Don’t hesitate to ask!

Members are also needed to help with ALA Connect testing on Saturday for about an hour between 1:30 and 3:30 PM. Testers will receive gift certificates to the ALA Store. If you are interested is volunteering for a test, contact me at lgruenberg@ala.org as soon as possible. Note that this is a new time, the previous test was set for Sunday.

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.

• Web Services Health Check (Sherri)
  ITTS circulated an RFP to diagnose and fix sporadic reports of problem with web-based services
  we’ve been unable to replicate the problem to date, so we’re having issues troubleshooting it
• Web Tag Team Initiative (Louise)
  introduced Sheila Joy, ITTS’ new trainer (the new Louise!)
  Web Tag Team is looking at those pages on the site that have nothing tagged to them – in other words, no content
  they’ll be going through the site and tagging things they think should appear under those subject headings
  will contact web managers when they want to add a tag to a page
  more should start appearing under those pages
  will have to discuss adding new content to the page if none existsquestion: can we send the report of pages with no content around to the unit managers?
  answer: yes, although we’ll probably put it on the share drive

2. ALA Connect Update (Jenny)
we’re still scheduled to soft launch in March and launch officially in April
have a number of volunteer groups for the soft launch
one more staff Q&A session Wednesday afternoon, although we may do a few more in March leading up to the launch

3. E-petition application (Donavan)
Board wanted this for this year’s election
we’ve tried to create something all units can use so need everyone to provide feedback
works a lot like the committee volunteer applications (public and staff sides) with flexible options

4. Second Life (Donavan)
the three staff members most involved in Second Life can’t really initiate anything for National Library Week
need input, initiative, and hopefully volunteers from the divisions and offices
putting on symposia, working with an Emerging Leaders team on an in-world event, continuing to put up videos and podcasts from Midwinter, have a Twitter feed
testing a live streaming capability
gaining confidence in our ability to use this as an enhancement for presenting programs, especially given how tight budgets are
let Donavan or Tina know if you have anything on your sites you want to re-purpose into SL

5. Blogs and Wikis Migration (Matt)
see the email that went out to all staff yesterday
Matt will migrate all blogs this weekend
contact him if you have questions or if you don’t need your blog moved so that he can delete it

6. Midwinter Twitter Presentation (Jenny)
Jenny did an overview of things said about ALA on Twitter and tweets from the Midwinter Meeting

7. Keeping up with developments

Blog w/RSS Feed – http://itts.ala.org/update/
Wiki – http://wikis.ala.org/learningcollage

8. Q&A

None this time

To help lay further groundwork for the official launch, we’re releasing an official ALA Connect Roadmap (114 KB, PDF) to provide some context and outline the service’s potential future. There are five sections to it:

1. Introduction
2. Unique Value to Members
3. Barriers to Adoption
4. Initial Metrics for Success of Phase One
5. Roadmap for Future Development

Section 5 includes descriptions of potential modules for phases 2 and 3. We’ll provide more details for phase 2 as we move into it this summer. The notion of “phases” is somewhat inaccurate, as features will be released on a continuous basis as they become available, but it provides a framework of building blocks.

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.

To help provide some background, especially for anyone who wants to discuss Connect at Midwinter, we’re providing an Introductory FAQ for ALA Connect (67kb, PDF). We tried to keep it short, so it’s not designed to answer every question or provide any detailed information beyond phase one of the project.

Please feel free to distribute it to interested parties and ask questions here. You can also send me questions at jlevine@ala.org.

ALA will be conducting three focus groups for the website at Midwinter
only have 24-30 slots and they are filling up
going to also do some remote online sessions with members, too
- want this to be an ongoing process

Accessibility review
had them do 15 different pages on the site and we did not do well
had them test to the Web Accessibility Guidelines, level 2
places we failed include if you’re doing multimedia content, you must have a transcript, even if you offer captioning
have many global changes we have to make

in February, we will begin group webmaster meetings broken out by like units

will move to a serif typeface
discussion of how to make links easily identifiable without forcing the user to mouse over text looking for them

RSS is now easier to both implement and display in Collage
contact Louise if you have questions about this

2. ALA Connect (Jenny)

beta testing for Connect started last week and will continue through the end of the month
five groups are doing the testing, as one has dropped out
if you know of an ALA group that would like to join the beta test, please contact Jenny

when this round of testing closes, we’ll go over the feedback and start making changes in February
when we do the soft launch will depend on how many changes we need to make
the hope is to spend the first few weeks of February tweaking and fixing in order to open the soft launch in late February/early March
from there, we’ll see how well the site scales and when we’re confident it can handle the load, we’ll do an official launch with PR
we hope this will be in March, but the timeline is completely dependent on getting things right after the beta test period ends

3. Hosted web services (Matt)

Dreamhost has changed the way one-click installs work
only the main account holder can do them now because of a security change Dreamhost made
the two options are to have Matt install a database and the unit can then do the one-click install, or to just have Matt create the database and do the install
it’s probably easier to just have Matt do it
still discussing this with Dreamhost to see if we can get this setting changed back

Blog and wiki migrations
resuming the blogs and wikis migration that slowed down over the holiday break
however, we won’t move anything until after Midwinter
Matt will contact each unit individually to work with them to set up redirects and go through any other issues with the wikis

in mid-February, Matt will do a mass migration of all of the blogs still on the old b2evolution software
logins, passwords, and skins/templates won’t migrate, but content will (posts, comments, etc.)
he’ll pick one template for everyone and do the migration

4.  Second Life (Donavan)

there’s a report about what we did in SL for Banned Books Week last fall
have a fairly large agenda for Midwinter for following what’s happening
YALSA now has a “playground” they’ll be debuting there on the Friday of Midwinter, along with some publications
there will be COGnotes and AL Direct stands
on Friday, we’ll be having a Privacy Revolution party
on Saturday, we’ll be covering Librarian of the Year award
doing some simulcasting of member group meetings
will be showing some slides of Guide to Reference in-world
hope to have some info about the awards presentations and have a book award party
plus much more

there are about 1200 self-identified librarians in SL
trying to find ways to interact with them in SL

this is a significant jump from anything we did at ALA conferences last year, and it’s taking less intensive staff resources this time

5. Five Minute Guide to Twitter (Jenny)

Jenny did a quick briefing on what Twitter is, how people (and organizations) use it, and some of the benefits
takeaways include the ability to respond quickly; broadcast to one, a specific group, or many; and the real communities growing there
ALA has a few Twitter accounts already: ALA Annual, ALA Midwinter, OIF’s Privacy Revolution, YALSA, and the Youth Media Awards.

6. Keeping up with developments

Blog w/RSS Feed – http://itts.ala.org/update/
Wikis – http://wikis.ala.org/learningcollage; http://wikis.ala.org/webplanning

7. Q&A

None this time