Review Library Technology Reports: Drupal in Libraries

As some of you know, I’ve been working with Drupal (opensource website content management system) for a while. I’ve built several websites in it, from an arts website to my portfolio.
I’ve also become part of the Drupal group on campus, just a group of like minded folks interested in Drupal.

At the first meeting I was asked (volunteered?) to demo the admin interface of Drupal and talk a little bit about Drupal. Using my brief Drupal overview which I put together for a few interested folks in the Libraries, I started fleshing out my documentation to encompass a wider audience.

As I was working on my presentation documentation, I was fortunate enough to receive the May/June 2008 issue of Library Technology Reports (ISSN 0024-2586), Drupal in Libraries by Andy Austin and Christopher Harris. Surprisingly enough, we covered a few of the same library sites as drupal examples, but the real value of Drupal in Libraries is that for each example site, there is an interesting interview from the library, which covers questions such as favorite features, challenges, and more of the new Drupal driven website.

Drupal in Libraries also provides a basic overview of terminology, which is easy to follow, even for a newbie to Drupal. Modules featured are discussed in more extensive detail than my list of most useful Drupal modules.

For those of you who are interested in Drupal and how it can be used in libraries, I definitely recommend Drupal in Libraries and of course, in a shameless bit of self promotion, you can read my Drupal writings, too.

Expression Engine security vs. drupal

Nice outline of pros and cons of two security models (closed vs. opensource), expression engine (ee) vs. drupal. Of course, lullabot also is closely tied to drupal, so take it for what it is worth.

http://www.lullabot.com/articles/drupal-and-expressionengine-security-models

Most useful Drupal modules

I thought I would crosspost some of what I consider my most useful Drupal handout information from my demo and presentation for the UGADG. Of course, this doesn’t include the demo part at the moment! Maybe I will screencapture that part and add it in later. Another thing for the todo list! Anyhow, you can see the handouts here

..and now to the top ten (plus):

• Book: Built in (core) functionality to create a book-like structure with table of contents and linking pages. Pages can be hierarchical, too.
• BUEditor: HTML editor. Available at http://drupal.org/project/bueditor
• CCK (Construction Kit): Create new content types and more with non-standard fields. Available at http://drupal.org/project/cck
• Clone: Easily clone (could be useful if manually migrating a website). Available at http://drupal.org/project/node_clone
• Front: Create a splah page, flash based intro page, or create a front page which has a distinct and different feel from the rest of the website. Available at http://drupal.org/project/front
• Image: Useful in creating an image gallery; note content from third party applications (flickr, youtube, etc.) can be crosswalked via rss or modules. Available at http://drupal.org/project/image
• Metatags (aka Nodewords): Add meta information to a page. Available at http://drupal.org/project/nodewords
• Nodeteaser: Create a teaser for a node that’s different from the standard “first paragraph” Drupal teaser.Available at http://drupal.org/project/nodeteaser
• Panels: Preformatted templates for the content areas in Drupal.Available at http://drupal.org/project/panels
• Pathauto: Specify URLs that aren’t just node/xxx — say, /2008/blog/title-here. Another option is using mod_rewrite in apache. Available at http://drupal.org/project/pathauto
• Sidecontent: Adds a sidebar to pages. Available at http://drupal.org/project/sidecontent
• Upload: Built in (core) functionality to control the type of uploading allowed.
• Webform: Create webforms to solicit feedback from users. Available at http://drupal.org/project/webform
• Views: Build lists of content and present them in whatever format and order you want. Create custom lists, tables and teaser lists. Available at http://drupal.org/project/views

Import HTML: import html from existing website. Information available at http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/import_html/import_html_help.htm?view=text&revision=HEAD

Access control & users:

• Captcha (or Recaptcha) - Antispam. User types in the text of a word. Available at http://drupal.org/project/captcha
• Diff: allows a wiki-like comparison of revisions (Drupal does have a built in ‘track’ feature for each user). Available at http://drupal.org/project/diff
• LDAP Integration for authenticating using a LDAP directory. Available at http://drupal.org/project/ldap_integration
• Organic Groups: granularity of user privileges (access levels; restrict content) which could be useful in hosted blogging or a large scale website with multiple content contributors. Available at http://drupal.org/project/og
• Secure pages: Adds https to login, admin pages. Available at http://drupal.org/project/securepages
• TinyMCE: wysiwyg editor for creating content. Need TinyMCE editor (third party, opensource) loaded first; then module. Available at http://drupal.org/project/tinymce

Extras:

• Ad module: Rotating javascript ad banner. Available at http://drupal.org/project/ad
• Blog: Built in (core) blog functionality.
• Bibliography: Create and publish scholarly works. Available at http://drupal.org/project/biblio
• Community Tags: Allows users to create and assign their own tags to content. Available at http://drupal.org/project/community_tags
• Gmap: Build a googlemap for a single institution, library branch or a combined map with all of your locations. Available at http://drupal.org/project/gmap
• FAQ + fivestar: FAQ gives you a content type specifically for FAQs with the option to format how those questions are shown. Fivestar adds a a “rate this” block of stars underneath any content type you specify. It’s an instant FAQ section, and if you always categorize your questions, you’ll quickly put together a large FAQ section organized by topic. Available at http://drupal.org/project/faq and http://drupal.org/project/fivestar.
• Forum: Built-in (core) functionality for user forums.
• MARC: Import MARC formatted records (e.g., library catalog) into a node. Available at http://drupal.org/project/marc
• Nodequeue: Easily create lists of nodes, e.g., a list of book reviews which can incorporated into a block on the site. Available at http://drupal.org/project/nodequeue
• Poll: Built in (core) polling functionality. Easily create polls, surveys, quizzes, etc.
• Profile: Built in (core) fuctionality to create customizable profiles.
• ImageCache: Make as many copies of an image you want at any size depending on location or anything else you specify. Available at http://drupal.org/project/imagecache
• Scheduler: Publish and unpublish articles at a set time. Available at http://drupal.org/project/scheduler
• Tagadelic: Tag Cloud module. Available at http://drupal.org/project/tagadelic
• Thickbox: A jQuery plugin that gives you very sleek photo popup/slideshow functionality. Available at http://drupal.org/project/thickbox
• Workflow: Provides an alternate means of controlling information placed on the site, e.g., must be reviewed before published. Available at http://drupal.org/project/workflow

Drupal Modules Finder http://drupalmodules.com/module-finder

Thanks to:

Top 10 Drupal Modules http://webpodge.com/2007/02/22/top-10-drupal-modules/;
Drupal4Libraries Listserv, Amy Qualls-McClure (Huntsville - Madison County Public Library); Cary Gordon Cary Gordon (The Cherry Hill Company, http://www.chillco.com); Ken Newquist, (Lafayette College, https://ww2.lafayette.edu/~soapbox/blog/newquisk) and Leo Klein (The Chicago Librarian, http://www.leoklein.com)

See resources for more links.

drupal and libraries

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Presented at Computers in Libraries 2008 conference

Link

drupal - what it is & how it works (overview)

For those unfamiliar with Drupal it is a largescale opensource CMS for a website which is used by the likes of Tim Berners-Lee.

Drupal is scalable and modular built which even includes design elements. Each Drupal website is like a house built out of legos — just like legos fit together to create something (a working door, a roof, etc.) which then creates the overall house, the modules fit together to create larger functionality, which in turn, creates the website.

Sounds confusing? Not really these days. The initial versions of Drupal were not so user friendly — figuring out which module went with which version and which module was needed for which functionality was sometimes hard (and complicated!). Early themes were very bland and all had a very Drupalesque view. At that time, it was very easy to figure out if a site was running Drupal. If the look didn’t give it away, then the urls (node!) would!

The latest version continues to move forward — even the actual Drupal website is getting more user friendly. Although the ability to search for modules by version at the website has existed for a while, it now clearly states which module (or theme) works with each version. Upgrades are getting easier to do, too. With the creation of the Zen theme (CSS based) and with some of the newer themes also supporting CSS, getting a more personalized look is becoming easier, too. The Pathauto module (version 5+) allows the user to create personalized and relevant URLs, e.g., mysite/resume vs. mysite/node/1

Finally, Drupal continues to shine at what it has been good at: providing web editors with a means to design a website by moving the construction and design away from the content creation. By having the content creation separate, adding content to a Drupal website can be a simple as posting to a blog. Of course, user authority levels and passwords are part of that, too.

Drupal does lack in some specialized functionalities such as creating an e-publication and e-portfolios. Given that Drupal is highly customizable and many of the modules can (and do) work together, there are many different ways to create more specialized functionalities such as e-publication and e-portfolios.

Drupal also has limited support for crosswalking third party applications. However, it does seem like support for third party applications is becoming more common, and with widgets being developed (or already available) for many of the common web 2.0 sites (flickr, youtube, etc.) it is easy enough to incorporate those bits of code into Drupal.

Drupal has recently branched off into a commercial project which is working with Millenium (III). I hope that there is no negative impact on the opensource project, as there has been with Joomla (a rival opensource CMS, for which most of the advanced functionalities are fee based).

Libraries or library related organization using Drupal: NW Central , Standford Univ. Information Center, Fish4Info (library portal), and there is even a module to import MARC into Drupal!

Drupal screenshots including behind the scenes are here.

Oh, and my little e-portfolio.

Ideas and…

So, I decided I would put all of Powerpoint handout stuff into my website to make it a little more interactive and interesting than just downloading a Word doc. I couldn’t quite figure out how to dump a Word doc into drupal and in looking around on the messageboard I discovered I was 2 versions behind anyhow. Isn’t that the way of the world? Anyhow, I upgraded to the latest version, and wow, is it a BILLION times better. My only complaint so far, is that I am having problems getting the Zen template (based upon CSS Garden!) to work. So, I am stuck with a modded template that belongs to someone else. Oh well. The second reason I decided to work on my website/drupal installation is that my original idea was to use it to build my e-portfolio, but I hadn’t really done much with it.

I received some inspiration this afternoon (Weds, 3/19/200 at an Emerging Educational Technologies workshop taught by David Noah from the Center for Teaching & Learning. His presentations/workshops are always interesting. Although they are based strongly in educational theory, he is a creative and forward thinking person. So, the discussions are always food for thought! He also talked some about e-portfolios (in addition to all of the Web2.0 stuff, second life, etc.), which made me think: where I am with my e-portfolio?

textpattern, wordpress, & redesign

I’m re-doing one of my domains with textpattern or wordpress. I considered drupal, but to be honest, I want something with a little stronger 3rd party support. There are several features & functionalities missing in drupal which I need. For a site from scratch or one with content generated from within drupal, all is well. For those working with 3rd party apps already, well, it may or may not work (or even be available).

Drupal templating is also notoriously tough to work with, although with the new css zen template, it is easier to give it a look which is not straight out of the box. Drupal sites are generally u-g-l-y, but very functional!

Anyhow, I decided to try something new. I need:

• a blog - one with categories, subcategories, tagging, css templating, rss, upload images + the ability to import a rather large MT export file
• image gallery - preferably one that can import from coppermine or gallery with category support, metadata, rss, crossposting of images (assign images to more than 1 category)
• easy support for 3rd party scripting from flickr, youtube, blogger, other rss, etc.
• a way to generate 5 or 6 mostly static pages
• ability to template and design with css; slightly different templates for various sections
• valid coding would be nice, but I know there are sometimes compromises

On this domain, I have been using expression engine (ee) for years for a blog software. However, I am now ready to dump ee, due to its cost and licensing restrictions. Actually, I started out with greymatter (opensource) then migrated to MT (movable type) and then migrated to ee. So, some of my data has already been through 3 migrations.

I know wordpress can do this. Textpattern seems to be an option too. So, an interesting experiment.

opensource alternatives to common commercial products

Although the introduction of this article is overly simplified in terms of the changes in library technology (I couldn’t help but laugh a little in a couple of places) , once you’re past that, the rest is a good little overview of some of the more popular opensource products. I’ve hotlinked and listed the products below, the article gives a more indepth overview.

The products are:
ubuntu (ms windows alternative based on linux)
firefox (web browser; ms internet explorer alternative)
openoffice (productivity suite with wordprocessing, presentation, and spreadsheets; ms office alternative)
thunderbird (e-mail + rss reader; ms outlook express alternative)
songbird ( media player; windows media player alternative?)
gimpshop (image editing; adobe photoshop alternative)
pdfcreator (pdf creator; adobe acrobat alternative)
Audacity (audio burning software)
avidemux (video creation)

Other stuff (web publishing, etc.):
wordpress
drupal
mediawiki and also twiki.

As far as libraries go, there is
koha
evergreen
vufind
liblime

I’ve talked a little about evergreen and vufind here. At home, I still run MS for the operating system and commercial stuff for my server; but then everything else is opensource or web based services (Firefox, gimp, ghostwriter+pdf, openoffice, etc.) Setting up these products on a small personal computer is fairly easy (really!). I’m not sure how that would translate to a large network, which could possibly be a hidden cost factor: installing these, configuring them as needed, and upgrading. Of course, admins already have to do that for any programs that they support. Training issues (oh the fun of trying to teach a group of web editors to use Drupal…) as well as potential security risks given the opensource nature would be other potential costs.

http://www.degreetutor.com/library/managing-expenses/open-source-library

creating a e-zine — software choices

So you want to create an online newsletter, a magazine or e-zine? What should you use?
There are many choices, some of which depend on budget size. My budget size= ZERO dollars.
My investigation actually began in May with Drupal. These were reviewed as of August 2007.

System requirements for most of these (but not all): Apache or IIS server; MySQL or another db server; PHP ; also: installation experience; templating; CSS, patience

• Drupal => Opensource. Largescale CMS (content management system); hosted on your server.

Not really magazine software but flexible enough to build most anything; also appears scalable with support for multiuser/multiauthority levels. I see a few drawbacks to Drupal — first the terminology is a little hard to wrap your head around if you are used to folder/subfolder/index/page thinking of web design. Drupal out of the box is eh…. ugly, too. Once the site is setup, then it has been structured and built with modules. No offense to the developers, they have done a great job, but they are in desperate need of some graphics & design folks. Although, one of the latest templates is following CSS/Zen Garden model, so at least one template provides some customization. Biggest drawback in creating a magazine is that it involves many modules and it takes quite a bit of time to put together.

I have wrapped the rest of the art site in drupal and will be working on pulling the site together into a more cohesive look. However, the lack of bridging between drupal and things like coppermine (image gallery) means that I may end up dumping drupal. Not sure. I’m trying to decide if I should choose choose flickr or coppermine or both. Another topic. Anyhow, Drupal does have modules for blogging, image galleries, etc. but definitely not as rich in functionality as some of the opensource stuff out there.

For my project: Third choice. With the various modules, Drupal does meet MOST of my requirements. However, its big sticking point is the lack of good module just for a magazine. There is a periodical module, however, I didn’t have satisfactory results with it; it seemed very limited and inflexible. Of course, I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to bend it into what I envisioned, either. If you have time to setup a magazine in Drupal and want an overall robust & dynamic site (beyond the magazine), it would be a good choice. Beyond the Drupal installation, you should be willing to spend considerable time building the architecture for your publication.
Templating will be another issue. Can you give a true magazine feel? Not sure. Is there help? Sometimes. The user community is big, but it seems like a lot of questions just go out to a void, where they are never answered.

Wikipedia’s overview: Drupal

• Joomla/mambo => Opensource. Largescale CMS.

So Mambo was “the” CMS for a little while and then the developers left and started Joomla and then somewhere along the way Drupal arrive. At least, that is my take on the situation. Throw in a few egos, some developer politics, and well, there ya go. ;-D Several Mambo sites that I explored have changed to Joomla sites now. Mambo still exists. Joomla is around. Both are supposed to be more user friendly, but I don’t know. The graphics are kind of cutesy, and the development seems to be lagging. Mambo ( oops, only Joomla now offers this!) has an add-on commercial magazine module but it is a little out of my price range. Without being able to test and know for sure that it would work for what I need, I wasn’t willing to risk the money. Why didn’t they offer a trial? Probably because having a trial of a module is a hard thing to do. Oh, well, their loss! Also, all of the weird stuff going on between Mambo and Joomla seems a little sketchy. Both seem scalable; module built sites.

Wikipedia’s overview: Joomla
Wikipedia’s overview: Mambo

For my project: Fourth choice (Joomla); Mambo (unsure)

• WordPress => Opensource. Originally blog software, but with plugins can work as a miniCMS. Runs either at wordpress.org or on your own server.

Pros: WordPress is amazingly easy to install. It has a huge user community. It is easy to template. It supports just about everything on my list although the prepublishing thing would probably be accomplished by marking posts “draft”. I’ve seen a few magazines done with wordpress but they still felt a little bloggy. This was my second choice because it is easy to use, the user community is strong, lots of plugins, and easy to format. Multiuser/multiauthority levels, built in. Cons: Not really magazine software; definitely bloggy.

A template for a e-zine using wordpress: morning after

For my project: Second choice.
Wikipedia’s overview: WordPress

• PacerCMS => Opensource; newspaper publishing specific; runs on your own server.

Never heard of it? Me, either, until I stumbled across it at opencms. The developer posted a little blurb that he had created this for his student newspaper. Hmmmm… Interesting, but could I turn it into a magazine? Does it meet my needs?
Just about everything!

• Almost “One push” installation — very easy
• Issues with category & article support
• RSS feeds for categories(sections) + overall site
• HTML in articles; image/media upload (not sure about mp3; I have embedded youtube)
• Database driven; template files & css
• Archives
• Pre-publishing
• Articles can be edited/moved/etc.
• User submitted articles/review process
• Very good user support via the development group at google groups (really excellent!)
• Spam control (everything goes through a review)
• Security (no server problems yet, but not really sure)

I can’t really say enough good things about PacerCMS. It is easy enough to template it to give a different feel but still use all of the built-in features of newspaper publishing. Additionally, as it is very much in development, you’ll want to keep up with the new files releases as they come out.

For my project: The winner! See it in action at http://www.moonshine.southerncreativity.com

Products that absolutely would not work:

• PhpCow => For 19.95 you can host a magazine/newspaper on their site, using their software. Hmm. For a LOT more, you can host it on your server. Out of my price range.
• Bricolage => Opensource. Bricolage is only backend magazine/periodical publishing and wouldn’t run on my server due to some security issues.
• Campware => Opensource. Really looks cool, but I wasn’t sure if I could install it. I have to secureftp into my server; so although I have root access; it’s not easy to get shell access.
• Serendipity/Expression Engine: Both of these seem bloggy and if I were going to go that route, I would go with WordPress. Expression engine is commercial software which is nice (and I currently use it for my art blog), but probably out of my price range for a small magazine.

Products which I looked promising/would consider/found after the site was up:

• CoFAX: Developed and used by the Knight Ridder newspapers. I did look at this earlier, but wasn’t sure if I would legally be able to use it. TOS is a little unclear.
• Props: Yet another project that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Yet, very promising.
• Prensalibre: I feel more comfortable working with php + mysql (this is perl), so although this looked promising, I took it out of the potential list at some point.
• Phpnews => A definite possibility although I couldn’t seem to get a clean download from the sourceforge site. I really wanted to test this one!
• Hyperjournal => Nice looking opensource software for academic journals. Hmm. Maybe one day we’ll grow into that.
• Open Journal Systems => Another outgrowth of the academic journal publishing; very largescale. I thought this one might be flexible enough in licensing to encompass an arts magazine, but a little bigger than what we need.
• Collegepublishing => Web based service free “for their partners”. Only for college campus newspapers. I’m sure there are tons of this kind of thing out there.

RESOURCES

Resources/reviews for Academic publishing

Free virtual sandbox to test opensource CMS before you download & install

creating a e-zine — lessons learned to date

1. Have a vision.
Check. I had that one a year ago (a regional arts magazine with topics both about art and by artists)

2. Funding.
The amount of $ you have to spend will affect everything else

3. Hosting? Find a place to host it.
I used some extra webspace I have.

4. A software list of features that you need (and a list of those you would like to have) in order to identify the best product for you.

Here are my 2 basic lists: required are those items which are deal-breakers (or almost deal-breakers); wishlist are functionalities that I’d like to have but am willing to do without.

REQUIRED:

• Ease of installation: I know a smattering of php, configure/write new templates, setup most opensource stuff, CHMOD, run scripts, etc. However, less time spent installing = more time for other things. ;-D
• Database driven
• Magazine/newspaper like feel:
  • Categories/Sections
  • Articles (with unique ids, so can be hotlinked)
  • Articles in a web friendly format (not pdf, flash, etc.)
  • Support for basic html in articles (links, images, etc.)
  • Issues with numbering
  • Upload images, media, video, mp3s which can be embedded in articles
• CSS or other templating
• Clear navigation throughout site
• RSS feeds by category/section
• Archives
• Flexibility: Ability to move articles as needed, edit, etc.
• At least a little bit of security. No grievous security holes.
• Spam control
• Support for external scripting (del.icio.us, flickr, etc.)

WISH LIST:

• Contributors can easily upload own submissions
• Review, Hold & Draft process (just check off)/Batch processing
• Pre-populate issues which publish on date without manual intervention
• Podcasting/videocasting
• Friendly urls
• Users can post comments/feedback for specific articles
• “Email this article” feature
• Magazine templates available (prepackaged)
• User support via an active forum, help, kb, etc.
• Hierarchical support (categories in sections)
• Statistics built in (at least: came from, page views, referrers)
• Scalability
• Tagging/tagclouds
• Regular backup feature
• Metadata

5. Software. If you go to any of the forums (opencms, drupal, joomla, wordpress, etc.) and read reviews, you’ll see that there are alot of options. Even more so, there are alot of opinions from very passionate users about why one is better than the other. I went through many lists and explored those that sounded like they might fit my needs. These are just my thoughts.
In my next post, I’ll explore my options in a little more depth.