Changes to College Web Servers (And What That Means to Us)

OIT split the GPC web server into three distinct servers (www.gpc.edu, facstaff.gpc.edu, and student.gpc.edu) on Sunday, March 30th. This will have no affect on the library webpages, but, if you maintain an individual page, your URL will have changed to facstaff.gpc.edu/~yourname. For example, my webpage used to be:

http://www.gpc.edu/~tminchew

And now it is:

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~tminchew

You'll need to make the necessary corrections to your links and images within your websites to point to the correct server.

Also you'll need to change the FTP host in Frontpage, Dreamweaver, CoreFTP, etc. from www.gpc.edu to facstaff.gpc.edu.

OIT will be doing automatic redirections until April 29th. Redirections will be discontinued on April 30th. Therefore, any web sites not corrected prior to April 30th may contain broken images and links.

OIT has also prepared a handy document to help us with the transition.

Repeat: This does not affect the URLs of the library webpages, but it may affect links within those pages, so please report anything you see to that page's webmaster.

Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions.

Looking for a conference to attend?

I found a handy list of library-related conferences at:
http://homepage.usask.ca/~mad204/CONF.HTM

GPC Ad Hoc Website Review Committee

Some of you may have heard that Interim President Watts recently formed an ad hoc committee to begin a website review process. Eva was gracious enough to get me on this committee and I just wanted to give you a brief overview of our work. This committee was not in charge of actually redesigning the webpage, only of making recommendations for the process. However, during the course of our meetings, we saw several examples of what the new GPC homepage could look like. I was iffy about some of the color choices, but that’s not carved in stone, and the designs themselves were very clean and professional. I'm pleased to say that the Libraries featured prominently in the main links in each of these mock-ups.

The committee began meeting on March 30, 2006. I was unable to attend the first two meetings due to prior commitments, but David Free went in my place. (Thanks, David!). The committee was charged by the Interim President to make recommendations to address the following directives:

• Ensure that GPC’s mission and goals are served by its website


• Promote coordination, consistency and cohesiveness throughout the website


• Recommend revisions or updates to the GPC web policy


• Recommend major design, content, or structural changes to GPC’s main web page and those linked directly to it


• Recommend design standards for deeper levels of GPC web pages or sites


• Provide recommendations on web-related issues or disputes

Our 17-page report was presented to Interim President Watts on July 3, 2006. The report contained ten recommendations for conducting the website redesign. On the redesign itself, the framework will be the same as ours, a college “gateway” serving as a door to individual department and/or campus pages.

Of course, there is a lot more detail than this and I’ll be happy to discuss it with anyone who is interested.

"Web Sites Judge in a Blink"

Interesting Reuters article about the time it takes someone to respond favorably or negatively to a web site.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/01/17/canada.websites.reut/index.html