Inaugural Technology Fair for Staff Development

Two of Yale University’s Professional Organizations,  Future Leaders of Yale (FLY) and Women in Information Technology at Yale (WIT@Yale),  have joined efforts to organize a Technology Fair for staff development. The Technology Fair provides an opportunity to highlight technical resources available at Yale that staff may not know about and create an opportunity for staff development. The goal for the Technology Fair is for it to be an annual event.

Before Kate Hathaway took on the role of Chair of WIT@Yale, she was on the FLY Professional Development Committee and worked closely with Phil Barello, Co-chair of FLY Professional Development Committee and Mela Waters, Co-chair of FLY Steering Committee. Kate Hathaway explained, “We were all interested in ‘hard-skills’ type of workshops so this was a natural partnership.”

WIT@Yale conducted a survey in January to see what interests people had for technical presentations, the results of the survey fostered the lineup of tools and technologies included in the Technology Fair.  Presentations will be conducted in a lightning-round style with a focus on how to get started and the use of each tool. Two of Yale University Library’s staff members plan to present at the Technology Fair, Angela Sidman, the Electronic Resources Librarian and Jenn Nolte, Digital Services Librarian in Library IT.

Technology Fair Lineup:

  • Qualtrics
  • Microsoft Office
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • YaleSites
  • ArcGIS
  • Zoom
  • Library eResources
  • QxMD
  • Remote Testing
  • Lynda & Books 24/7
  • Yale Calendar
  • Yale Room Reservation & Scheduling
  • Yale Event Managment
  • YaleGit
  • Other free/open apps such as Google Suite, Trello and Slack

The Technology Fair takes place on September 15th at the Yale Center for Teaching, located at the Sterling Memorial Library, from 12 – 1:30 pm in Room 120. If you can’t make the event in person still register, FLY and WIT@Yale plan to give access to a live Zoom broadcast for registered attendees.

FLY is Yale University’s Official Affinity Group for Young Professionals and is sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Yale. FLY is open to any Yale professional, regardless of age, who is looking to further their career path. Whether they are at the beginning of their career or looking to take that next step, to further develop and enhance their opportunities at Yale. FLY provides professional development, career advancement, mentorship and networking opportunities for its members across disciplines.

WIT@Yale is a shared interest group whose goal is to encourage, empower, and support women in information technology roles by providing a community for networking and support. WIT@Yale is sponsored by two Co-Executive Sponsors: Susan Gibbons, University Librarian and Deputy Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communication; and Jane Livingston, Yale ITS Associate Chief Information Officer.

 

Resources:

To find out more information about attending the Technology Fair, you can register here.

To find out more about FLY, you can visit their website or contact Phil Barello, phil.barello@yale.edu.

To find out more about WIT@Yale, you can visit their website or contact Kate Hathaway, Kate.Hathaway@Yale.edu.

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.

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.