LibraryTechtonics

A huge project I’ll be tackling for Reading Public Library over the next year or so is revamping the web site. The whole project will involve examining the information architecture, devising a better navigation system, better compliance with all sorts of ADA and usability requirements, and adding new features. One of the new features of great interest is adding an online application for a library card.

I remember sometime back going to a session about online card sign ups at a conference, but I’m guessing things have changed a bit. A quick web search of libraries that offer this service fall into several broad categories:

* Fill out the form online, show proper ID at the library, pick up your card

* Fill out the form online, get a temporary card number, show proper ID and pick up you card or have it mailed

* Fill otu the form online, get a temporary card number, pick up the card or have it mailed (no ID necessary)

I know that the Williamsburg Regional Library somehow manages their online card sign up process through their Horizon catalog, which is interesting because I haven’t seen it before. You can obtain a temporary number (there seems to be no geographic limiter, I registered under my home address) that allows you to place up to 5 requests until you pick up your permanent card. I could use some, but not all, of the library databases with the temporary number. I’m not sure that this is possible through Millenium, I need to do a bit more homework.

Most of the other applications do have some level of geographic limiting to them, so I didn’t want to fill out too many forms with junk information just to see what would happen (at least, not without permission first). I’m most interested in the systems where a temporary library card number with an expiration date is issued, and the real card is issued later somehow (mail, pick up, or both). If your library does this sort of thing, could you leave me a comment or send me an email with your experiences?

I just wanted to share with you a bit I wish I’d known *before* I imported my MT posts.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there’s a difference between how Movable Type formats post slugs, subbing underscores for spaces (the WordPress lingo for the filename at the end of a permalink URL, i.e., wordpress_insta.html), and how WordPress formats slugs, using dashes for spaces (i.e., wordpress-insta.html). While there is a handy little plugin-plus-poking method that can fix the for you, the rub is that it really needs to be installed *before* you import your posts, not after, since the plugin only updates posts henceforth made. So while my new post was formatted all nice and pretty, the old ones still needed help.

Arg.

So I went back, deleted the first round of imports from the database using PHPMyAdmin, then reimported them (a reimport will not overwrite the posts, at least not the first time I tried it… I’m guessing there’s a way, but it’s really kinda moot now). Now they work quite nicely. I don’t feel too badly about the time taken to fix this little problem, especially given that the base install was so easy.

Another wee bitty problem with the import after changing the way that slug paths render was having an .htaccess file. There is a snippet of code that needed to go into the .htacces file to enable all sorts of overwriting fun. So I created that file, uploaded it, and all was well. (If this doesn’t make sense, feel free to ask questions. It just seems like a whole lot of dry tech to explain, unless you’re looking for the answer explicitly.)

So now the permalinks on the posts are behaving better. The permalinks on the pages (the software makes it possible for you to create whole pages of content in WP that aren’t blog posts or blog pages, but really straight HTMLish looking pages), on the other hand, are another story. It seems like it’s not possible to make the about page “about.html” instead of “about,” or, rather “/about/”. While the permalink custom changes I made to the posts, in theory, *should* carry over to pages, it doesn’t seem like it. At least, not yet. I’ll poke a it more tomorrow (and any feedback is appreciated).

If you’d like to see the very beta version, feel free to take a look. I’ll work on it some more tomorrow, and once I have it in a really good place, I’ll do some uninstall/reinstall/announcement of new feeds to share with you.

[I originally made this post on the new WordPress install, but have decided to keep that install tucked away until I'm officially ready to switch over.] I need to run to work in a little while, so the rest of the installation fun will have to wait until later, but I wanted to keep you posted on what I’ve done so far.

First things first, I downloaded the WordPress software in the form of a very standard, normal .zip file, and read over the installation documentation before started. It’s a good idea to read over any documentation before you start, even if you are a techie type, because you never know what you’re going to find in the process.

I also read over the documentation on how to import Movable Type posts into WordPress before even starting, to make sure there wasn’t anything freaky I needed to do during the process to make sure the MT posts would play nice with the new install.

All documentation being square and equal, I unzipped the downloaded file, followed the magical Famous 5 Minute install instructions on the WordPress site, uploading everything to the server and visiting the install page in the admin directory. Everything went up in a jiffy, and the blog itself was up almost literally in 5 minutes.

The import was not as super easy, but still not too horrible. The newest version of WordPress (I intalled version 2.0.2), by all accounts, apparently has a way easier import process than older versions. However, the import documentation on the site has yet to be updated. My first stop for answers was WordPress Support, where I found an article that had a solution that should be used cautiously. I changed the permissions on the content folder before the import, which then went off without a hitch, and then changed them back after I made the import. In researching the problem, I also found post on the Disco Moose blog that helped a great deal (and affirmed that I wasn’t going crazy).

As mentioned in the Disco Moose post, there are some issues as to how the page names translate from MT to WP, and there are a variety of proposed fixes on the WP site, and I opted for the method that made the WP names (post-name.html) more like the old MT posts (post_name.html), so’s the individual link pages won’t be broken, along with a plugin that ensures future post names (a.k.a. “slugs” in the WP world) will also sport the fancy underscores instead of dashes in their names. It has taken quite nicely, at least for now (I need to iron out some issues), but the category pages are still a bit broken. I’ll work on those later.
I’ve spent some time making some very simple changes to the standard Kubrick design theme, and some other basic bits. I’ve also installed the Spam Karma 2 and podPress plugins. I’m having some problems with Page management (it’s as easy to create or edit a web site page as it is to create or edit a post to your blog), but I’ll get on that later.
Basic observations about my experience thus far:

• Generally, for the basic install, it’s super easy. Super duper no-brainer easy if you’re really, really comfortable with working directly on a server.
• While the MT post import wasn’t one-hand-behind-my-back easy, it was one-eye-closed easy. It wasn’t even nearly a smidge as ugly as the import I originally had to do from LiveJournal to MT.
• Installing plugins is easy, *way* easier than with MT. There’s a bunch of stuff I never did with MT because I didn’t have the time, patience, or energy to poke through stuff. WP plugins are way friendlier, in my opinion.
• The software seems a bit more usable and friendly.

If you’re contemplating the move to WordPress, I’d say give it a shot.

Today is the day. I’m starting the move from Movable Type to Wordpress. It’s something I’ve talked about for a while, but I’m finally doing it (the plan is also to do this over at the PLA Blog, so this is sort of an experimental practice run). Hillarity may ensue, things might look freaky around here (not that many of you hit my blog directly, I know most of my traffic is feed-based). Please mind your feet and be careful of potholes.

I must say, my friend Jeanne is a one-woman ideation agent of brilliance. Talking to her is like seeing all of the idle-yet-interesting thoughts that sit in the back of your brain somewhere come to life in a burst of motivation and possibility. I’m terribly, wonderfully excited that Jeanne is currently in library school, since we need more of her ilk in our profession.

One of the niftiest parts of talking to Jeanne about library stuff is that we share a specific flavor of technology experience, one that includes coding and shell access and database planning and information architecture and all sorts of dirty techie fun. In a lot of ways, being techies in our first lives then librarians in our second lives gives us a sort of enhanced uberpatron outside-looking-in approach to librarianship, as well as steeped-in-culture view. We see inherent possibilities where librarians of other specialties may not because of the way our brains are programmed to think, as well as because we love libraries so much that we don’t want to see them go into the ground like a freakin’ dart.

I had the privilege of hanging out with my friend Jeanne this past weekend, and boy did we *talk*. Thinking back on our conversations over the past few days, I see a few of the stumbling blocks I’ve been experiencing lately in my blogging in a new and different light. I feel like I don’t know my readership well enough, and since not everyone moves at the speed of technology, so it’s hard to figure out whether or not it’s “too late” to post something due to lack of relevance, or whether or not it’s something that everyone already knows, where I’d be beating a dead horse. I know I’m good at piecing things into bite-sized chunks (or so my patron/students insist), but I don’t feel like I have a good enough sense of what constitutes bite-sized for my readers. I’m not trying to make or shape a readership niche, I’m trying to understand better my readership niche.

Jeanne gave me lots of great feedback and ideas. I realized that it was feedback that I craved, and now I have a really firm, new sense of going in the right direction. I’m definitely going to incorporate some of her suggestions, schemes, and comments in my bloggage (and she gets full credit for being the greatest librarian muse *evar*), but because it’s all so big and wonderful, I need to make bite-sized chunks of my own to get it going, but I definitely won’t be afraid to go beta and just start tossing it out there. And, any feedback you might have is heartily encouraged and appreciated.