Lemonade: Week 2

I have to keep this quick. I've spent entirely too long consolidating our domain name registrations and dealing with errrors therein. It's partially aftermath, but that's ok... it'll get straightened out now that we're getting centralized and coordinated in web efforts here.

Last week, I got invited to a meeting of MPOW's Digital Collections committee. Though meetings do take up additional precious time, it's so important to participate when you get an opportunity. One of the key issues that our usability testing raised was the difficulty our online users had when they were taken from our website and plunged into ContentDM. The two systems - the website and digital collections have thusfar existed separately and seemingly unaware of one another.

At the Digital Collections meeting, I think we began to shift toward our leader's new vision of an integrated virtual library. Finally! We all knew it needed to happen. Old structures, things that were due to the history of the organization, but didn't meet the changing needs of our users, had to fall away. Our budget crisis & the mass retirements caused the ground to shift beneath our feet. Now, we can all talk to one another. The walls are tumbling down! And it will be the best for our end users, and thus for our organization.