Librarians who Drupal?

[Ellyssa Kroski]

Any other librarians developing Drupal sites out there? I'd love to chat. I have set up a Drupal 5.1 installation on my development server at home using a WAMP environment. I've added and created a lot of modules and menus, etc. but what I'm teaching myself now is how to do theming. So far it's pretty complex to do much beyond editing the CSS on existing themes. Anyone else attempting to learn theming? Send me an IM (AIM handle=ellyssakroski), an email, or just reply to this.

Best,
Ellyssa

[adri]

Not using drupal -- we are using Joomla for our big read site www.bigreadok.com and are going to implement Joomla for a complete main site redesign this coming year.

[adri]

Thanks -- the Big Read site is just out of the can really -- but we've got some great add-ons for it. Anyone is welcome to register and see what else we have available to registered users. We are going to test Joomla store functionality with another big project called Red Dirt. I'll share the Red Dirt link once we get the current site migrated to Joomla.

/Yeah - Kansas! ;-)

[Jonathan M. Smith]

Here's another vote for Joomla!

When we decided to use a CMS for our intranet almost 3 years ago we looked through everything, narrowed it to Mambo, Plone, Drupal and something else I don't remember. We chose Mambo. After the developer split we followed the Joomla branch and haven't looked back!!!

I'm thinking we need to start a new thread on here for librarians who Joomla/Mambo. I had no idea that anyone else was using it. It would be great to share tips/ideas/code.

[David Campbell]

We have it on a test server here at PVLD. But I'm also taking a close look at Plone.

[Kathryn Greenhill]

I considered Plone for a project. It looked like it had most things I wanted on the CMS Matrix, and the sites using it looked rather streamlined. I ended up using tikiwiki, as I didn't want to learn Zope. How are you coping with the different environment to most CMSs?

[David Campbell]

Hi Kathryn,

So far I really like Plone. The admin side takes some time to learn.
Workflows and permissions have been kind of tricky since we
are trying to tie them in with Active Directory. In the end though
it should be a smooth process for end users. I won't really know until I go live and get some feedback from staff.

[Steve McCann]

I'm currently using drupal for an old committee page here: http://montana.librarydigitalprojects.com/ One of the early headaches I ran into was the amount of work it took to customize the page, it required more than the 15 minutes I had budgeted (probably unreasonable come to think of it ...) :/ Other than that, the drupal implementation was very easy for the committee members to work with. For our library site, we're also looking at moving to either drupal, joomla, mambo, post-nuke, or maybe xoops. We would like to stick with open source, if at all possible.

[Ryan Deschamps]

Hey Ellyssa -- here is a link to a discussion about using CSS in lieu of tables (the "tables are bad" theme).

http://groups.drupal.org/node/892

There may also be some leads to coding the rest of the system.

[Jami Haskell]

I'm currently testing drupal for my library's site redesign - just started the process. I would love to make some contacts with folks learning the process as well.

[Mark Leggott]

We are moving to Drupal at UPEI for the Library and entire campus website. We are also using Drupal to build a VRE (Virtual Research Environment). UCalgary (http://ucalgary.ca/) is a nice example of a University using Drupal in a big way, including the Library. Also, Mark Jordan (http://digitizationblog.interoperating.info/) has a site for discussion of Library stuff using Drupal (http://drupalib.interoperating.info/).

[Melissa Shepherd]

Hi Ellyssa-

I am working up a LAMP Drupal intranet here--just started on Organic Groups Module, and am looking at theming next.

[Elise B]

Hey Ellyssa! Woot! We have similar names! Mine is annunciated Eh-lee-Sah. Congrats on the book! Any who, I am considering CMS for the pending redesign of my library's site http://libkcad.ferris.edu/ Could you make some suggestions on literature for someone starting from scratch and with bare bones knowledge on CMS? I just came across Drupal in discussions and know we have the system requirements. However, I have no clue how to start...Would love to pick your brain. Peace!