Discussion of CMS article

Building a Collection Development CMS on a Shoe-String

Regina Beach and Miqueas Dial
Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Texas, USA
Library Hi-Tech 2006, Vol. 24. Issue 1. pp. 115-125

I chose this paper as my reading assignment because the technical service workflow is requested to be changed during CMS implementation. In this case study, the authors describe the need for a collection development Content management systems (CMS), necessary changes in library technical services, and the process in developing a working prototype of the collection development CMS with low cost for Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK), a small university.

“CMS allow anyone with authorization to enter information onto a web page without knowledge of hypertext markup language (HTML) for purposes of updating a web site. Also, information may be entered on a web page form for sharing or distribution. All of this may be done at any time of the day or night at the user's convenience.” TAMUK library has inadequate resources to support faculties and students' research and distance education. In order to have integrated library system, web site and electronic resources work together and have faculty and students involved in collection development, a new efficient library system, a Collection Development CMS on a Shoe-String is requested. However, the challenge for such a small university is to find staff, staff time, and resources to do this while carrying out very basic library functions at their home campus.

In order to build a collection development CMS on a shoe-string, TAMUK need to change technical service workflow. The new system will let faculty place orders with web order form in the CMS and subject liaison review the orders from CMS database. Once orders are approved by librarian, order records and full bibliographic records (MARC records), provided by the vendors, will be forwarded for processing and posting to collection development website. The order records and bibliographic records will be one-enter to CMS instead of multiple inputs, and can be accessed immediately by patron, which will benefit distance education. This change will save the OCLC charges and acquisition staff work from creating a short bibliographic record. At this point, the technical service department is playing an important role in this CMS implementation.

The authors mentioned it could be a problem for the changing because of aging people. I agree with them. Maybe it will be a better practice to train someone new in the library for the new process. In my experience, it is easier for novices to accept new stuff because everything is new for them.

However, it was difficult to disseminating the information and having campus employees actually use the system, and integrating this ordering process with other library systems .