| John Zenelis University Librarian Associate Vice President, Information Technology George Mason University |
Wally Grotophorst Associate University Librarian for Digital Programs and Systems George Mason University |
| Victoria Shelton Life Sciences Liason Librarian George Mason University |
LeRoy J. LaFleur Head, Arlington Campus Library George Mason University |
In response to a recommendation from the President’s Library Task Force for the university libraries to provide as much assistance as possible to both faculty and students becoming more productive in their respective endeavors, the library has embarked on a program to develop disciplinary-based research portals for nearly 100 academic graduate programs by the end of 2010. The program has two goals: first, to respond to faculty requests for stronger academic collaborations with their disciplines (by offering tailored portals to digital scholarly resources) and, second, to provide the university’s 20+ liaison librarians with a mechanism that can foster closer cooperation and integration with the department/academic program.
This system is unique in that it combines a resources database, a calendaring service, a blog and discussion forums, and relevant RSS feeds into a single, discipline-focused Web resource. It is a useful way to get librarians and instructors/researchers working together. In a very real sense, this project pushes the evolution of the “subject” guide into a more interactive platform, and helps build interaction between library staff, faculty, and graduate students across the institution.
Two open source packages were combined to provide the framework for these services: WordPress and CWIS (part of the Scout Internet Portal Toolkit). This session will address various administrative, cultural/professional, and “change management” challenges that such a large-scale project inevitably entails. The presentation will also include demonstrations and comments on two sample portals by liaison librarians, as well as answers to technically oriented implementation questions.
http://phobos.gmu.edu/melange/
http://gmutant.gmu.edu/global/
Presentation (PDF)