Delivering Individualized Library Content: Portals & The Future of

Library Web SitesTom Ipri

Media Services LibrarianConnelly LibraryPhiladelphia, PAipri@lasalle.edu

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

La Salle University

• Founded in 1863• Philadelphia, PA• 6200 students• Main campus and 2

satellites

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Connelly Library

• 9 Full time librarians• 1 Part-time at satellite• No dedicated Web

person• No dedicated Portal

person

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

mylasalle

• Luminis/Campus Pipeline

• University Wide

• Live Summer 2003

• Cradle to Grave

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Why Library Services in mylasalle?

• The largest source of information on campus

• Best opportunity to segment information from a vast collection and direct it to specific populations

• Only way to get email

• Registration, housing, grades

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Brief History

• On development committee

• Ensure library presence

• Library “tab”

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Original Look

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

First Version

• Basically a “dumbed-down” version of home page

• Not taking advantage of potential

• Director of Portal Communications hired 2004

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Second Version

• This time it’s personal

• Campus and Targeted Announcements

• myConnellyLibrary

• myResources

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

myResources

• Library subject guide +

• Resources from departments– Forms, procedures, job ads, etc.

• Education, Social Work, Grad Psych, SLH

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

New Developments

• Assignment Calculator

• Use of RSS feeds

• Federated search

• WebPac Pro

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

RSS Feeds

• Simple XML code

• Library news

• Databases

• Electronic Journals

• Library Links

• Basically anything

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Snags

• Director of Portal Communication leaves– Change of priorities– Uncertain future

• New Web team– PHP/MySQL– Code to read database output

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Back on Track

• A lot of bits and pieces– Adding hand-coded & RSS channels– Converting database info to feeds

• Can be aggregated on one “Tab”

• Tab – channels – tab

• Marketing

• Training

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

What’s Next

• Federated search

• SSO for databases

• WebPAC Pro– Circulation info in channel

• More use of CSS

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Is it a mash-up?

• Darlene Fichter– Web site or web application that uses context

from one or more sources to create a completely new service

– Building blocks

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Portals and Library 2.0

• Paul Miller– Push the library everywhere– Disaggregate library systems– Liberate the data– Get the data to the user, not the user to the

data

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Impact

• Rethinking library services with the portal in mind

• Portal is designed to be dynamic and customizable

• Bring information closer to user

• Portal roles

Tom Ipri - Wide Open Portals

Impact

• Not a huge entity parsed into smaller bits

• But smaller bits that are greater than the whole

• Don’t add up to one thing, but different things for different people

• Future of library web sites?

Delivering Individualized Library Content: Portals & The Future of

Library Web SitesTom Ipri

Media Services LibrarianConnelly LibraryPhiladelphia, PAipri@lasalle.edu