Yale ITS Moving Drupal to the Cloud

On Tuesday, February 16, Yale ITS created a test instance of the Library’s Drupal website in the new Acquia cloud environment.  Library IT will have two months to test the site’s content, performance, and robustness.  If all the tests go well, the Library’s Drupal website will move to the Acquia cloud at the end of the test period.

The Acquia cloud is a new cloud-based computing platform that Yale ITS is using to relieve some of its dependence on locally-hosted architecture.  Yale ITS has told Library IT that the Acquia-hosted Drupal site will be faster, more responsive, and more robust than the current locally-hosted Drupal site.

First two weeks of LibGuides 2 training completed

Library IT held its first two weeks of LibGuides 2 training from June 9 until June 17.  Eight classes were held in four locations and 40 staff members attended training.  Training materials are available online at

http://guides.library.yale.edu/libguides2

Two more classes will be held in July:

Bass Library L06
Tuesday, July 14, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Thursday, July 16, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Minutes from the 6/15 UXAC

Decisions from the 6/15/2015 User Experience Advisory Committee meeting:

  • A list has been compiled to determine the next steps for the Subject Specialists pages.  The Committee will consider:
    • Including links to the staff directory
    • Indication that the departments being searched are academic departments and not library departments
    • Including a chat widget
    • Inclusion of special collections staff and archivists
    • Inclusion of degree programs from professional schools
  • A collaborative session to explore ways to present Quicksearch in instruction will be planned for the first week of August.
  • The LibCal project will be postponed to roll out in January; the LibAnswers project will be moved forward to start in July.
  • Exhibition-related information on the website will be inventoried, analytics will be reported, and a proposal for increasing exposure of exhibition-related information will be produced.

For more information, see the full meeting minutes available on the UXAC’s SharePoint site.

Decisions from the 5/18 UXAC

Decisions from the 5/18/2015 User Experience Advisory Committee meeting:

  • Change the “Feedback” link on the bottom of all pages from the Qualtrics form to the new locally-developed Drupal feedback form.
  • Decisions made by the User Experience Advisory Committee will be put in the IT Newsletter with links to the full meeting minutes for those who are interested.
  • The technology behind the Resources About Yale search is great and the feature should be highlighted, but it shouldn’t be on the Quicksearch home page.
  • Decisions on the eBooks search should be held off until we get information from the eResources folks about the overlap between Orbis/Morris eBook content and Summon eBook content.

For more information, see the full meeting minutes available on the UXAC’s SharePoint site.

DrupalCamp Report

Several Library IT staff members attended the YaleSites DrupalCamp on Thursday, March 19.  User experience staff attended presentations on determining the goals for a website, website design, information architecture, using YaleSites pre-built features, CSS injectors, creating views for content types, Google Analytics, search, using filters and compare. The topics discussed touched on nearly every aspect of running a Drupal website.  Of particular interest to YUL was the presentation on information architecture, as it included in its slide deck a screenshot of our Quicksearch Beta!

An information sharing-event such as YaleSites Drupal Camp is one of the benefits of the library’s participation in the centrally supported web content management system.  Library staff are always welcome to attend YaleSites events, and we saw quite a few library staff at the day-long conference.  If you are interested in learning more please check out YaleSites Training or look at slides from YaleSites presentations.

LibGuides 2 check-in

The LibGuides 2 implementation project has moved out of the planning phase.  The LibGuides 2 implementation group has approved documentation for the upcoming LibGuides 2 upgrade, including:

  • A LibGuides best practices document that has gone to CRSC for vetting;
  • A communications plan;
  • LibGuide review instructions;
  • Technical documentation; and
  • A LibGuides styleguide that will also go to CRSC for vetting.

The LibGuides 2 implementation group is now meeting with YUL departments to inform LibGuide authors about the project and the work that LibGuide authors will need to do for the project to be successful.  The LibGuides 2 Road Show, as it’s called internally, will run until April 15.

Many thanks and burnt offerings to Sarah Tudesco who has put together a Google Analytics statistics dashboard for LibGuide authors to use when they review their guides.  The use of the dashboard is explained in the LibGuide review instructions and requires no knowledge of Google Analytics.

The LibGuide review instructions will be released to LibGuide authors in April. For an extremely brief overview of the roadmap for the LibGuides 2 upgrade, check out http://www.library.yale.edu/skw33/libguides-2-timeline.jpg.

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks!