Rochester Hills Public Library

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Building an information resource intranet for
library staff
Eric graham, custom services developer
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Why are we here?

• Libraries expend considerable resources building
  information systems for serving their patrons.
  While library staff members also have information
  needs, they are frequently overlooked when
  information automation is being planned. A
  library intranet can often address this
  information gap.

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Agenda

• What is an Intranet?
• Intranet vs. extranet
• Why an Intranet?
• Advantages and Disadvantages
• Intranet Myths
• Common uses of a library staff intranet
• Planning for an Intranet
• Thinking about intranet design
• Integrating Information Design with
  organizational planning
• Measuring Intranet return on investment (ROI)
• Tools and technologies available for building a
  staff intranet
• Utilizing what you already have
• Stuff you might not have, but is free (sort of,
  like free kittens)
• Blogs Wikis
• Technologies you need to employ to get free wiki
  or blog software Up and running

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What is an Intranet?

• An intranet is an internal informational presence
  containing information for managing an
  organization and its staff.
• the true power of an intranet is realized when
  dynamic, collaborative, or data-driven, content
  is made available
• Information can be served to staff through simple
  web pages, or through more advanced techniques
  such as RSS feeds and WIKI's.

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Intranets vs. Extranets

• Intranets differ from "Extranets" in that the
  former is generally restricted to employees of
  the organization while extranets can be accessed
  by library customers.
• The intranet is your libraries room of ones own

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What is an Intranet good for?

• Intranets provide an extraordinary opportunity to
  change the culture
• Providing information that everyone needs but not
  everyone usually gets
• Creating collaborative means of drafting policy
  and managing projects
• A way to invent new workflow, without creating
  more work
• Creating an audit trail of your organizations
  history

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Information an intranet needs

• administrative information
• policy manuals
• procedures manuals
• staff reports
• committee minutes
• accounting spreadsheets
• staff news
• links to staff email / telephone
• links to databases
• staff developed knowledge bases (fugitive facts)
• links to public Internet sites used by staff
• links to training modules
• forms used by staff
• staff directories
• time clocks to count employee hours

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Technical staff create a toolbox that will keep
them coming back

• Updates
• User tools
• Discovery tools
• A Web toolbox
• Common applications
• Support systems

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Advantages of an Intranet

• Workforce productivity
• Time savings
• Communication
• E-Document management and versioning
• Preservation and dissemination of institutional
  knowledge
• Promotion of a common culture and can be an
  change agent
• Enhance Collaboration

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Disadvantages of an intranet

• Inappropriate or incorrect information can be
  posted on an intranet.
• Creating In a devolved intranets There is a
  balance to be struck between taking advantage of
  this freedom to achieve corporate goals and
  having appropriate controls in place to meet an
  organization's legal or moral responsibilities.
• Expertise needed to administer and develop
  Intranet information within the organization.
• Security of the intranet becomes an issue.
• Constant maintenance Intranets should not be
  designed to be static enties with year updates.
  A good intranet changes its content all of the
  time. Staff time and effort will have to be used
  to keep the intranet relevant.

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Planning for and creating an intranet

• What are the goals of the intranet
• Decide if the intranet is good for work.
• Establish an Ongoing Content-Development Process
• Develop an Editorial/Development Voice
• Decide Who is going to take ownership of the
  content on the intranet (persons, departments,
  taskforce groups, projects groups)
• What documents and information is to be shared on
  the internet.
• Which person(s) or department(s) would "own"
  (take control of) the technology and the
  implementation.

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Planning for and creating an intranet

• How and when existing systems would be phased
  out/replaced
• What steps will be taken to make the intranet
  secure
• How make the internet comply with community
  standards
• Level of interactivity desired (eg wikis, on-line
  forms, or static pages).
• Is the input of new data and updating of existing
  data to be centrally controlled
• Hardware and software decisions.
• Participation issues and guidelines (like good
  taste, harassment, confidentiality), and features
  to be supported.
• Implementation processes to be used

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Intranet Myths

• Intranets are cheap
• Build and they will come
• Intranets are for BIG organizations
• Just another buzzword
• Intranets require little maintenance
• Intranets are internal webs

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Integrating Information Design with
organizational planning

• The intranet has been called the most important
  business tool since the typewriter. Despite many
  successes in cost and time savings, many sponsors
  of organization-wide intranets remain
  dissatisfied. Why? They have spent time and money
  on development, Net-enabled desktops, even
  intranet training, but still aren't enjoying
  significant enough productivity or cost savings.
  Why? While critics often point to technological
  glitches, the real problems may lie in
  information design.

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Information Design and organizational planning

• Intranets should help employees collaborate on
  processes and projects
• Focus on processes rather than departments
• Successful process-oriented intranets look and
  work as differently as the processes they enable.
• Don't Overlook Design
• Think About Tasks Rather Than Documents
• Organize Tasks Into Larger Processes
• Create Virtual Workgroups Organized Around
  Processes
• The Intranet Reflects the Library the library
  Reflects the Intranet
• Good Design is Good Business

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Measuring Intranet Return On Investment

• The surge in interest surrounding intranets may
  remind one of the early and heady days of the
  World Wide Web. The Intranet is the new hero,
  leading the panel discussions at library
  conferences. It seems that about the only thing
  intranets can't do is make tea. Calculating
  intranet ROI is more art than science
• Cost Savings
• Fast access to information
• Increased Productivity

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Getting started Testing the Intranet waters

• Use familiar technologies
• For users' sake, keep your starter site simple
• Make it as secure as possible
• Keep things safe on the inside
• Aggressively test your system
• Make it easy to update
• Form an intranet advisory team
• Make sure that someone is in charge
• Keep your technical options open
• Be patient and supportive
• Promote your intranet

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Now the fun stuff Technologies to applications
to enable the staff Intranet
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Leverage what you already own Cheap is good!

• Internet Information Services (IIS) - Demo
• RSS - Demo
• Reporting Services -Demo
• Active Directory/Exchange Integration
• Shared Calendars

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Stuff you might not have, but is inexpensive
(through your educational reseller) from Microsoft

• Sharepoint Document Management System and more
  - Demo

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Stuff you might not have, but is free (sort of,
like free kittens)

• Blogs WIKIs
• Blogs (short for Weblogs) and wikis (Polynesian
  for quick) are proliferating everywhere,
  including in the library community. By early
  2007, there were hundreds of library blogs and
  scores of library wikis. Despite the fact that
  blogs and wikis have become commonplace, they are
  often confused with one another. A blog is an
  electronic broadcast by the owner of the blog.
  If the owner of the blog permits it, others can
  respond by adding comments, but they cannot edit
  the content. Instead, the comments are displayed
  in a separate area. A wiki is a collaborative
  content development tool. It is a Web site that
  allows anyone, without knowing HTML, to post
  content to it.
• -Dick Boss

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Library Blogs

• There are many of library blogs. Some list
  library events, others blog about books. Some
  libraries utilize blogs that contain reports of
  staff activity (the goings on at the reference or
  desk, comments on programs, news from the latest
  library conference, results of ballot
  initiatives, minutes from staff meetings, etc)

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Blogging Software

• Blogging software is required to create a blog,
  but only a Web browser is required to read a
  blog. A legion of open source blogging software
  products available for download and installation.
  
• Apache Roller (www.rollerweblogger.org),
• Geeklog (www.geeklog.net)
• LifeType (www.lifetype.net).
• Community Server (http//communityserver.org)
• Movable Type (http//www.movabletype.org).

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Wiki

• Wiki is an Intranet in a box
• From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• A wiki is a medium which can be edited by anyone
  with access to it, and provides an easy method
  for linking from one page to another. Wikis are
  typically collaborative websites, though there
  are now also single-user offline implementations.
  Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki,
  WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the
  simplest online database that could possibly
  work". One of the best-known wikis is
  Wikipedia.

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Wiki ... What is it, I mean really...

• Wikis contain ALL the features that you need to
  create a successful intranet, combined in one
  convenient, easy to use software package.
• Wiki Terminology
• A single page in a wiki is referred to as a "wiki
  page", while the entire body of pages, which are
  usually highly interconnected via hyperlinks, is
  "the wiki". A wiki is essentially a database for
  creating, browsing and searching information

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Wiki Advantages...

• WIKI pages can be easily created and updated.
• Editing wiki pages is easier than using HTML
• Document management and page versioning is built
  in
• Controlling changes is easy
• Navigation
• CamelCase easily linking and creating pages
• Searching All wikis are indexed for searching,
  indexes may be Full text or using metadata with
  controlled vocabulary, you choose
• Wiki Farms Get a taste of the wiki experience.

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Wiki Advantages...

• Security
• The open philosophy wikis, allowing anyone on
  staff to edit content, does not ensure that all
  editors are well-meaning. Vandalism can be a
  major problem. Wikis by their very nature are
  susceptible to intentional disruption. Wikis tend
  to take a soft security approach to the problem
  of vandalism making damage easy to undo rather
  than attempting to prevent damage.
• Set Up
• Wiki's are open source software. Although the
  wiki-software itself is not unnecessarily hard to
  set up an maintain, The initial installation
  requires a system administrator to install many
  moving parts in order to get the Wiki running.

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• Wiki Demo http//freewiki.info/

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The Moving Parts

• Technologies needed to get free wiki or blog
  software Up and running
• HTTP (Web Server software) or
• HTTP Application Server software
• Open Source Database servers (MySQL, PostgreSQL)
• OpenSource WebScripting language (PHP,Perl,
  etc..) extensions
• The JAVA SDK

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Installing OpenSource

• Installing OpenSource
• Read the (online) Manual TWICE
• Don't believe one word of it, search the net, and
  find out how others have solved the puzzle of
  installation on your hardware platform.
• Install the Java SDK FIRST
• Install the SQL server
• Install the web service/HTTP server
• Install the SQL server web extensions
• Install the programming language web service
  extensions
• Install Your application
• Realize the manual was right, just worded badly
  ......