For the past decade, e-mail has been the preferred method of internal communication in libraries. However, relying on email for organizational knowledge management seems a bit like storing birth certificates, car titles, and deeds in a pile of junk mail: the important documents are lost amongst other items of only minimal or fleeting importance. A successful intranet can provide a secure place for information exchange and storage; however, in order to be successful, a library intranet must be easy to use, have the functionality desired by its users, and be integrated into the daily workflows of all library staff. Accomplishing this can be challenging for web librarians.
The book covers, among other topics, third-party hosting; the use of freely available blog and wiki software for internal staff communication; and developing library intranets in ColdFusion, Microsoft SharePoint, and the open source Drupal content management system (CMS). More importantly, the authors examine in detail the human factors, which, when not thoroughly addressed, are more often the cause for a failed intranet than the technology platform.
This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Web Librarianship.
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Dynamic Space for Rent: Using Commercial Web Hosting to Develop a Web 2.0 Intranet 3. Upgrading a ColdFusion-Based Academic Medical Library Staff Intranet 4. For Better or Worse: Using Wikis and Blogs for Staff Communication in an Academic Library 5. When the New Application Smell Is Gone: Traditional Intranet Best Practices and Existing Web 2.0 Intranet Infrastructures 6. Who Moved My Intranet? The Human Side of Introducing Collaborative Technologies to Library Staff 7. Organizational and Social Factors in the Adoption of Intranet 2.0: A Case Study 8. An Unexpected Ally: Using Microsoft’s SharePoint to Create a Departmental Intranet 9. A Point to Share: Streamlining Access Services Workflow Through Online Collaboration, Communication, and with Microsoft SharePoint 10. Intranet 2.0 from a Project Management Perspective 11. Designing and Building a Collaborative Library Intranet for All 12. Corralling Web 2.0: Building an Intranet That Enables Individuals
Author Bio
Nina McHale is Assistant Systems Administrator at the Arapahoe Library District, USA.
