Oct. 28 Required Reading: HTML and Web Authoring Software

1) W3schools HTML Tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/ 
     I thought that this link was really cool, but with very little instruction or explanation on what the tutorial expected or allowed me to do- I was a little lost.


2) HTML Cheatsheet http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/html_cheatsheet/
     For some reason I had a lot of trouble with being able to consistently access this link. On the same laptop I would attempt to open it and an error would occur half of the time and the other half the link opened fine.
     When I was able to open it- it was very helpful and actually helped make sense of what I could do in the HTML tutorial link.
 

3) Pratter, F.E. (2011) Introduction to HTML, Chapter 2 of Web Development With SAS by Example, 3^rd Edition (Google Book) http://books.google.com/books?id=l_MFZYMv3YgC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=introduction+to+html+pratter&source=bl&ots=nXRgMFYZHz&sig=muV0UY1c_ePZO1pcdu8_V_IdbwQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Mvs4ULG9O4Gf6QG8h4GICw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=introduction%20to%20html%20pratter&f=false 
     This article did a great job of providing examples of how to write HTML and then showing the resulting webpage view of the code. It is definitely a good reading to start with before beginning to play around with HTML code. The content was dense and difficult to follow at times but the main points I pulled out of the reading include:

• All markup languages are tags to annotate the document content- HTML has a short list of standard tags that you need to learn in order to use HTML
• HTML has a lot of repetition- writing it can be tedious
• Automated process called IDE exists to save time
• The best way to learn to write HTML is by viewing examples and a lot of practice
• XHTML- difference from HTML is that all elements must be in lowercase, having closed tags, nest properly, and attributes must be quoted
• XHTML must also conform to DTD for XML-based Webpages- so you cannot use formatting instruction in your pages
• HTML tags must be nested and the standard is that all tags should be lowercase
• Images can be generated using: GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and BMP

4) Goans, D., Leach, G., & Vogel, T. M. (2006). Beyond HTML: Developing and re-imagining library web guides in a content management system. Library Hi Tech, 24(1), 29-53.  
     This reading focused on the Georgia State University Library, subject liaison librarians, and the content management system designed to manage 30 web-based research guides.

      It explains how 15 liaison librarians were developing and had complete editorial control of web guides for their subject fields at the University. As a result there was no consistency between the guides and a lack of training was resulting in poor quality.

     Because these issues the library hired a web development librarian. Standard's were implemented, web content was improved, and the web presence was managed all while the web content continued to grow. As a result the library now had an official library content management system to make the guides and web content more accessible to users/students.

The reading does a great job of explaining the different aspects, options (open access or not), and importance of a content management system in a library aspects such as the content, control, customization, and complexity of the CMS underscore the importance of such a system and how it cannot be simply defined as just a library repository.