1. Intranet 2.0 School: How to Build the Essential Staff Intranet for Your Library Chris Evjy and Nina McHale Colorado Association of Libraries Annual Conference October 8 2010

2. Introduction

3. The Problem with Email http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email

4. Why do “traditional” intranets fail? They’re not easy/intuitive to use They’re not integrated well into daily workflows of all staff They don’t contain useful/relevant/timely information They are not collaborative spaces Communication is unidirectional Editorial bottlenecks stifle open communication

5. Intranets 2.0? Web 2.0 tools have the potential to help overcome these hurdles Platforms are simpler to use (i.e., blogs, wikis) for people without web development skills Environments can be more open and collaborative, especially if history of content is kept However, 2.0 tools do not guarantee success

6. Evjy/McHale Intranet Continuum

7. Environmental Scan

8. Gathering Input: User Survey What do you like about our current intranet? Or: if we had one, what would you like to have? What do you go there to find? Or: what would you want to find on an intranet? What would you like to be able to do? Present them with potential features/content Design aesthetic: Google or NYTimes.com Make survey results public, but anonymous

9. Auraria Survey Example, 1 of 2 Questions 1 and 2 asked respondents to view two academic library intranets and rate: Content Presentation Organization Usability What do you currently go to the intranet to find? Examples: blank forms, newsletter, statistics, reports, minutes, policies, department information

10. Auraria Survey Example, 2 of 2 If provided, which of the following would you use? Internal news, warnings/alerts, draft material for cttees, conference reports, presentations, calendar, room scheduler, budget, other What other information would you like to find or what task would you like to perform? What do you like/dislike about current procedures for posting to the intranet? Any other feedback?

11. Other Information Gathering Methods Observe your colleagues at work (with permission) What tools to they use? What types of documents/data do they produce? Where do they store these documents/data? Visit department/team/committee meetings Discuss work that members perform as a team Are there opportunities for tech-enabled communication and collaboration?

12. Project planning http://www.flickr.com/photos/jazzmasterson/2738790/

13. Framing the Project Who will do the work? What software/platform will be used? What types of content will we include? Where will this new creation live? When? What is our timeline? How do we pay for it?

14. Who Will Do the Work? Do you have web skills in-house? Does that person/those people have time to take on a very large project? Can you budget the human resources? Team approach recommended Should you hire a developer? Can you budget the $? How will maintenance be handled post-launch? Who will work with the developer?

15. Where Will This New Creation Live? Where is your web server currently? Do you have a high enough level of access to create a new site, or will you have to negotiate with your IT support? If you don’t have an appropriate environment, investigate options such as: Purchasing commercial web space Using a free hosted service, i.e., PBWorks Consider how to secure sensitive information

16. What Software/Platform Will Be Used? Blogs Blogger WordPress Wikis PBWorks MediaWiki Content Management Systems Microsoft SharePoint Drupal

17. What content areas to include? People Documents/Documentation Communication venues Professional resources

18. People Personal profiles Professional details Personal details (fun & optional) Photos arranged in galleries Birthdays! Yes! Contact lists

19. Documents/Documentation Minutes, policies, forms? Conference reports? Presentations given to the library? Professional resources? Department, committee, group info? Procedures, documentation? Online workflow? Examples: purchase and travel request forms, tech services workflow Communication?

20. Pic Break http://www.igougo.com/photos/journal/132x132/Carmax_LA%20-%2042.jpg

21. Communication Venues Admin/Management  Staff Blogs Staff  Admin/Management Forums Staff  Staff Blogs Forums Comments Between members of work groups

22. Professional Resources RSS feeds from publications LISNews LibraryJournal feeds, etc. RSS feed from LEO (Library Education Opportunities) Conference calendar Internal job openings Local resources specific to your library

23. Increased buy-in = more complete adoption Identify expert users within different workgroups Survey – people love to be asked what they think Respond openly & publicly to feedback Sell the project to Admin Clearly defined goals Intranets are perfect for introducing CMSes into your library

24. Sample project goals, BPL Facilitate communication between staff members, departments & branches and contribute to the sense of a BPL Community. Effectively support the work of BPL Public Services staff. Provide BPL staff with a reliable source of information concerning logistical aspects of working for the Boulder Public Library. Introduce BPL staff to the concepts and practices involved in web content management.

25. Auraria Project Planning In 2006, Intranet Redesign Task Group was formed Survey conducted revealed great dissatisfaction with legacy SharePoint intranet Aging server threatened stability of intranet Decision was made for static web site to moved content to stable environment ASAP Work turned over to Web Librarian for implementation

26. Implementation http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottrettberg/1596702/

27. Migrating Content What can be moved as-is? very little… What needs revision? and by whom? what is critical prior to launch? What can be left off the new intranet? can it be forgotten forever? should it be archived?

28. Usability Observations “As easy as a light switch.” Looking over users’ shoulders Task focused Streamline user experience What are people getting hung up on? What could make tasks more efficient? Are your design decisions in line with the reality of use?

29. Drupal (Boulder) vs. MediaWiki (Auraria) Open Source/Free Fully customizable Steep backend learning curve More user-friendly to end users Overall, more feature flexibility More theme (look and feel) options for Drupal Permissions can be defined more granularly Open Source/Free Much quicker to install/configure/launch Automatically has document history/revisions, discussion pages Backend learning curve easier Does not handle document files well Doesn’t manage workflow

30. Our fav =

31. Drupal issooooooperfect forIntranets

33. Blogs, Wikis, Commentsand Web 2.0 goodness

35. Forums & Notifications

37. Content Profile & Views

40. LDAP Integration

41. Finder & Birthdays

43. Node Reference & Taxonomy

44. Work in progress…

45. Aggregator & Feeds RSS

48. Organic Groups & Organic Groups Taxonomy

49. Work in progress…

50. FAQ & Taxonomy

52. Roll-out http://www.flickr.com/photos/axlefoley/4001306346/

53. Roll-out Launch Beta site Training Group training (workshops) Training tree Screencasts (point-of-need help) Help documentation Resources Marketing Task focused weekly campaign approach

54. Auraria Roll-out Examples Adoption by Shared Leadership Team Minutes procedures (documentation page) Group training Covered the basics of wikitext (links, lists) Individual wiki page as sandboxes

55. Minutes Best Practices

56. Assessment http://www.flickr.com/photos/traductioninfidele/50939641/

57. Assessment User Satisfaction Usability isn’t just for the library’s home page Re-administer survey Individual features and content areas Metrics/quantitative evidence Survey results Compare to “environmental scan” results Web statistics

58. Boulder Examples Not there yet.

59. Auraria Assessment 2010 Email poll: what should be on the intranet’s home page? Survey responses to four questions: How often do you refer to the intranet How often do you add, edit, or change content? What do you like best? What could be improved? Wiki statistics

60. Email Poll

61. Survey Responses, 1 of 2

62. Survey Responses, 2 of 2

63. Survey Results: What’s Good Uses network login Easy to create, edit, and store content Freedom and flexibility to add content Good for documentation Good for collaboration Gets information out of our email, off of our hard drives, and into a centralized location

64. Survey Results: What Could be Better Login clunky (even though it’s network) Formatting wiki pages Navigation Search feature and results Linking to non-wiki documents (i.e., shared drive) Easy to lose content (no auto save) Integration with Excel and PowerPoint

65. Auraria Wiki Stats

66. Intranets Issue of Journal of Web Librarianship

67. Questions? Comments? Chris Evjy Boulder Public Library MSLIS candidate, Syracuse University evjyc@boulderlibrary.org @endupok Nina McHale Auraria Library nina.mchale@ucdenver.edu @ninermac milehighbrarian.net