The LIS Web Team is a student group whose mission is to teach LIS students web development skills suitable for working as an information professional. To this end, the Web Team hosts semi-annual HTML Workshops as well as periodic workshops in popular computer software such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. The Web Team is also responsible for maintaining and updating the LIS Program website, and as of Summer 2007 will be undertaking on a major redesign of that site.
Over the past year I have worked hard to learn the leadership skills needed to manage and inspire the Web Team. My tasks as leader include delegating jobs like updating the website, coordinating the schedules of everyone on the team, determining the need for workshops and organizing them, and rallying everyone to attend functions and help out in general.
In order to have a productive semester, we call one big meeting at the beginning to allow everyone to share their ideas together. From that meeting we decide in general what kind of workshops we want, who will teach them, and how many events in total we want to have during the semester. I encourage the members to come up with new ideas and to help revamp the old ones. I try to have each teacher really work to create their own presentation and materials - while working within the general framework the group has decided on - that way they feel comfortable with the material and gain the experience they will need as independent librarians. As leader, however, I have final say over the material, as I am the one making sure each session works well within the overall curriculum we set.
I like to get contructive criticism from the other members, and one piece of feedback I particularly appreciated was: “Caitlin doesn’t always do exactly what I want – which would be ideal for me! – but she always listens and acknowledges what I say before deciding to do anything else.” Right now I think I do a good job being the “Stern-but-Groovy Taskmaster” of the Web Team, but I continue to strive to learn more about working in groups and being the kind of leader who is not only good at basic organization and management, but someone who is smart, kind, and actually inspires people to want to do their best.
back to top ^ Instruction
When I joined the Web Team in the Fall of 2005, I was asked to help teach the HTML Workshops. My first session was “Basic CSS” and before I started I didn’t even know what CSS was! However, I always have the confidence to learn to do whatever it takes to accomplish my goals, so I picked up some books on CSS, hit the internet, and starting learning. By the time the session came around I had enough knowledge and experience to lead the class, design exercises, and answer questions – not bad!
By the end of the Spring semester 2006, I was the only non-graduating member of the Web Team and was getting ready to lead the next group. Luckily, a lot of great new students signed on, and we immediately started to plan the sessions for next semester. As the person with the most HTML experience on the team, it was my job to revamp and revise the current curriculum to address the expanding development of web programming. We added new sessions on CSS (Basic and Advanced), we removed tables, we added information on usability and ADA compliance, and creating sessions that were no longer separate classes, but one integrated program of six weeks of classes and exercises.
I introduced each session with a 10-minute lecture on usability, designed to address issues that would come up in that session’s material. I then introduced the teacher for that session, a different member of the Web Team each week. We also had a guest speaker come in for the last session to talk about the ePortfolio – an important part of the LIS Program requirements and chance for each LIS student to show off their work (you’re reading mine now!).
I feel confident, based on these past years of instruction experience that I can work as a teacher to develop material, coordinate a team, and complete instruction on subects I myself might not initially be familiar with. I think this kind of student-lead instruction that the Web Team does is great for everyone – the students have a chance to learn new skills in a class of their peers and the teachers have a chance to hone their instruction skills and gain experience with development and education.
back to top ^ The Redesign Project
Over the Spring and Summer of 2007 I worked with a team of three others to develop, create, implement and maintain an entirely new LIS Program website (see the previous version ). This was a massive project involving not just aesthetic changes but changes to the underlying programming that drives the site.
The new design is meant to be bright, colorful, attractive and friendly. We tried to convey the feeling of being in a tropical and sociable place, and really wanted to focus on people – pictures of students, alumni, faculty and the surrounding environment. We also wanted to draw in viewers in an attempt to make the site more appealing for prospective students.
The logo: how do you visually represent “library and information science”? After looking at all of the ALA-Accredited Library Program websites (yes, all), I decided that what we needed was something that conveyed not only the idea of connectivity and ideas, but our unique identity as a crossroads between the Pacific and the Mainland. The logo I designed represents those connections of places and ideas through the node-like circles, which are also representative of the Hawaiian islands.
The backbone of the site is PHP, which we have used to control the templates for each page, the inclusion of content, and the navigation which is dynamically generated from one master site-map. We are also excited to be a part of the Web 2.0 generation! To that effect, we plan to implement a variety of social-networking features and enhanced customization of the site. Right now, we aren’t sure how to do this, but we’re working hard to translate lofty ideals, crazy ideas, and wild inspiration into an implementable reality.
Finally, the guiding principles for this project have been three: it has to be implementable by us – meaning, we can’t do something we can’t do; it has to be used – a feature with no users is no feature at all, either our students and faculty use whatever we do, or it comes down; and it has to be sustainable – the Web Team is an ever-changing group of people and as people come and go, we have to make sure that whatever we do now can be maintained by those who will come after us. I believe the site we launched has been very successful so far in meeting all of these criteria, and I'm proud to have been a part of this project.