Faculty and Staff

Leveraging Drupal for your business:
Use Drupal to power your business -- hear case studies and learn about adapting to open-source technology.

Libraries are growing into new joint entities -- the library as a place, and the library as a resource. Library websites serve as a resource, delivering tools for learning to patrons and students in an academic setting. Drupal is an ideal tool for facilitating the specialized tasks that many library developers have to complete.

In this session, attendees will learn about:
       1. Using the built-in architecture of Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 to meet the goals of library 
           websites.
       2. The 10 best modules for library websites.
       3. 10 recommended theming techniques for common library interfaces.
       4. New expectations of library websites as gathered from user surveys and usability
           studies.
       5. Example set-ups of Drupal sites for common library settings and staff organizations.
       6. Successful case studies of major library websites run on Drupal.
       7. Tips for useful library-specific usability studies with library users and students.

Attendees will come away from this session with a firm understanding of quality library sites as tools, and what many users are growing to expect. They will also learn how to set up a Drupal website for a library, and successful ways to meet the specific resource needs of their organizations.

The archived event website can be accessed here.

Anthropology librarian Juliann Couture and Joyce Martin, curator of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center, looking at the Center's display of unique Hopi Kachina dolls. Four of the kachinas (Navan Kachina; Talavi Kachina; Flute Kachina; and Ahöla Kachina) were created by artist, carver, and former ASU employee Tony Dukepoo as a gift to the libraries in 1979. The kachina dolls are on display in the Labriola Center located on the 2nd floor of the Hayden Library on ASU's Tempe campus.

Most redesigns involve exhaustive plans, dense reports, and thorough documentation of site requirements. When the website is perfected, this brand-new site is rolled out to users. This is often a lengthy process. The principals of Agile development champion interactions over processes, working software over comprehensive documentation and responding to change over following a plan. These methods encourage small, iterative changes on a rapid development and delivery cycle. This allows developers to respond to needs more quickly and decreases the cognitive load on users while allowing them to more easily adapt to change. Get tips for making a case for library websites to adopt Agile practices —small improvements through iterative changes allow users to adapt and increase user satisfaction.

This presentation addresses the usability testing and user feedback which initiated the decision to purchase a web-scale discovery service for a large academic research library, the selection process to determine a service provider, the project management employed to implement and market the service, feedback provided by users and library staff, and the future impact of web-scale discovery services on libraries and library staff.

Presentations describing the steps involved in a library website redesign are ubiquitous. Most redesigns involve exhaustive plans, dense reports, and thorough documentation of site requirements. When the website is perfected, this brand new site is rolled out to users. This is often a lengthy process.

The principals of Agile development champion interactions over processes, working software over comprehensive documentation and responding to change over following a plan. These methods encourage small, iterative changes on a rapid development and delivery cycle. This allows developers to respond to needs more quickly and decreases the cognitive load on users while allowing them to more easily adapt to change.

This presentation makes the case that library websites should adopt Agile practices. Small improvements through iterative changes allow users to adapt and increase user satisfaction.

The Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community addresses topics and issues across disciplines in the arts, humanities, sciences, and politics. Underscoring Indigenous American experiences and perspectives, this Series seeks to create and celebrate knowledge that evolves from an Indigenous worldview that is inclusive and that is applicable to all walks of life.” Professor Simon Ortiz discussed the overall nature of the Series, especially emphasizing the global nature of Indigenous concerns. Joyce Martin and Matthew Harp elaborated on the contributions of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center and ASU Libraries to the Series.

The Labriola Center hosts an informal event in Hayden Library which facilitates close interaction between the featured speaker and audience members. The ASU Libraries records the evening lectures which take place at the Heard Museum and presents both an audio podcast and streaming video of each lecture on the ASU Library Channel webpage. This lecture series provides not only a chance for community discussion at the events themselves, but through the innovative use of technology the ASU Libraries enables additional forums for discussion in blogs and web pages which choose to link to the streaming videos.