Spurious Tuples

We’re at the end of the second week of classes already here at Saint Mary’s, and believe it or not, I’ve already done two instruction sessions — one of which was at 8:00 a.m., heaven help me.  I’ve got big plans for this semester, including incorporating a bunch of stuff that I learned last summer at Immersion, and working toward building a curriculum-integrated information literacy program in our Nursing department, which I hope will serve as a model for other departments at the college.  We’re also putting the final touches on our new General Education program, which we now know will include information literacy outcomes as part of a first-year seminar, so that’s another exciting step forward.  It really feels like there’s so much potential here, just on the verge of blossoming forth.

But in all the rush and bustle of the beginning of the semester, I haven’t managed to post here about an example of fulfilled potential that just blossomed forth right under our very noses!  I am delighted to announce the launch of the Cushwa-Leighton Library’s new, completely redesigned and rebuilt web site!  Here’s a quick screenshot:

I can’t take much direct credit for it — it’s been a massive collaboration between the staff and librarians here at the library, our web guys in the college’s Marketing and Communications department, and our wonderful web designer — but I’m very, very pleased with how it’s turned out.  It’s built on Drupal, so it offers us an easy way to distribute the work of updating and maintaining the site, while maintaining consistent formatting and clean, standards-compliant code across the whole site.

We’re still fixing a few bugs here and there, and I’ve got a wish list of additional features that I’d love to get implemented.  But the core functionality is there, and we’re already getting positive feedback from our faculty and staff.  We’ll be doing user testing with students and faculty later this fall, and I’m really curious to hear what they have to say about it.  In the mean time, we’re just basking in the glow of a really really big, and nearly completed, project.