Announcing “WordPress for Libraries,” an Upcoming Library Technology Report

I am thrilled to announce that I will be co-authoring an upcoming ALA TechSource Library Technology Report (LTR) on using WordPress for libraries, which will be published in the spring of 2011.  Polly-Alida Farrington, my great co-author, and I have already begun the invigorating planning for this project.

While this LTR will, like most LTR’s, cover the practice of using WordPress successfully, we are approaching this with an eye on the diverse communities WordPress can and does already serve in the library community.  From small public library systems, to digital archives and academic libraries, OPACs, and even library and information science education courses, WordPress has evolved from a simple blogging system to an extensible full-fledge content management system.

We’re actively seeking out a diverse set of guest authors and case studies to develop a comprehensive dialogue around WordPress in order to get the most accurate representation of what WordPress can do for libraries – and what it can’t.  Yes, what it can’t do.  We hope to include in our cadre of guest authors individuals from other CMS camps like Drupal and Joomla who have experience with WordPress to help futures users understand its full set of opportunities and limitations.

In the same vein, we’re looking outside of librarianship to WordPress developers and evangelists to help create a full picture about the sustainability and future of WordPress.  Tapping the knowledge of these communities and individuals at the code level helps to clear the sometimes murky waters of software development.

Polly and I also understand that a technical topic of this nature could benefit from building a “living” resource to tap into.  In addition to the LTR, we’re developing several WordPress sites to archive tutorials, screencasts, other resources and to exemplify a variety of uses of the software and plugins.  We hope to build the community of library WordPress users and provide a centralized and dynamic location for them to learn from and teach each other.

If you have an interest in writing a guest piece for this LTR or know of exemplary resources that you feel should be included, please feel free to contact me at kylejones [at] thecorkboard [dot] org or on Twitter.

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About Kyle:

Kyle attained his MLIS from Dominican University in River Forest, IL, worked as the Library IT Specialist at the A.C. Buehler Library at Elmhurst College, and is currently employed as a Knowledge and Learning Services Librarian at Darien Library in Darien, CT.  He has over 4 years of WordPress experience at the author, editor, instructional, theme developer, and system admin levels.  He successfully implemented WordPress Multi User at Elmhurst College to host and support hundreds of First Year Seminar student blogs and developed an innovative learning management system out of WordPress Multi User for Dr. Michael Stephens’ library and information science students.

About Polly:

Polly attained her MLS from State University of New York at Albany and has worked in academia as a reference librarian, government documents and maps librarian, interlibrary loan librarian, and information systems librarian all at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.  She is now the principal owner of P.A. Farrington Associates, a library consultancy focusing on project management, website management, and information technologies.  As part of her consultancy she’s developed and conducted multi-day instructional sessions on using WordPress in library systems.