[CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Midwest 2014 at Grand Valley State University, 7/23-24
We're looking forward to seeing you all at Code4Lib Midwest this July at Grand Valley State University. We're planning a great 2-day conference with talks and lightning talks by you, hackfest time with toys from our Makerspace, visits to local tech offices, and some great social time in our awesome town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Details are up on the wiki, with logistics and scheduling to be fleshed out soon. Looking forward to seeing you! http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/Midwest -- -- --- Matthew Reidsma GVSU Web Services Librarian 616.331.3577 :: @mreidsma
[CODE4LIB] Online Course: Responsive Web Design for Libraries
Please feel free to share on other appropriate listservs, blogs, and with colleagues. Responsive Web Design for Librarieshttps://infopeople.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1id=281 An Infopeople online course, January 28 to February 24, 2014 By next year there will be more active mobile devices than people on the planet. How can you ensure that your library's online services work as well on smartphones and tablets as they do on desktop computers? What about devices that haven’t been dreamed of yet? Instead of reacting to each new device, you can build websites that adapt to any device. Join Matt Reidsma, author of a new book on responsive design for libraries, to learn: - The basics of responsive web design (RWD) - How to compare RWD against other solutions to the “mobile problem” - How to implement best practices for website design in an increasingly mobile world even if you don't use RWD Instructor: Matthew Reidsma Fee: $75 for those in the California library community, $150 for all others. For a complete course description and to register go to https://infopeople.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1id=281. -- --- Matthew Reidsma Web Services Librarian, Grand Valley State University matthewreidsma.com :: @mreidsma
[CODE4LIB] Call for Papers: Weave Journal of Library User Experience
Please feel free to share on other appropriate listservs, blogs, and with colleagues. - Weave is a peer-reviewed, open access, web-based publication featuring articles on user experience design for librarians and professionals in related fields. Our editorial board consists of recognized experts in the field of library UX, and our editorial philosophy is to strive for a balance between theoretical and practical topics. As the importance of digital services begins to rival that of collections, library user experience is taking a more central role than ever. While new jobs are being created for User Experience librarians and some departments are being renamed User Experience teams, there is still no comprehensive, rigorous publication for library UX professionals to share with and learn from their colleagues. Weave is intended to fill that gap. Weave helps practitioners and theorists come together to make libraries better. We are looking for two kinds of work: 1. Full length, scholarly articles of relevance to UX in libraries. We are interested in publishing innovative and cutting edge research, practical applications and their implications, and ideas and speculation about future directions for UX. Interested writers should review our instructions for authors ( http://ojs.scholarlypublishing.org/index.php/weave/about/submissions#authorGuidelines) before submitting articles online. 2. The Dialog Box, a new kind of review section. Weave's Dialog Box aims to extend beyond the traditional book review section and feature critical dialog not only with books but with other media that set the boundaries of library user experience. Because we aim to encourage creativity, our submission requirements are flexible. But all Dialog Box features will start from and engage an existing artifact relevant to library UX. Interested writers should review our Dialog Box submission requirements ( http://ojs.scholarlypublishing.org/index.php/weave/about/submissions#dialogbox) before sending pitches to dial...@weaveux.org. Submissions can be uploaded at: http://weaveux.org Unless otherwise noted, all content in Weave UX is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) in order to allow for the greatest possible dissemination of our authors' work. If this license would prevent you from publishing in Weave, then please contact us at he...@weaveux.org. -- -- --- Matthew Reidsma GVSU Web Services Librarian 616.331.3577 :: @mreidsma
Re: [CODE4LIB] responsiveness and Wordpress
Ron, Bootstrap or Foundation are great frameworks for starting quickly with responsive design, but you'll get the most out of your site if you do the work yourself, based on your own content. If you'd like to learn more, check out my talk from ALA last month on Responsive Design for libraries. It's part theory and part hands-on, walking you through the techniques. The talk: http://matthewreidsma.com/articles/23 The LOL Library demo site: http://lollibrary.org Cheers, -Matthew On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Andrew Hankinson andrew.hankin...@gmail.com wrote: 'Responsive,' in modern web design parlance, refers to the ability of your layout to respond to the different devices and screen sizes that may be accessing your site, and present your content in such a way that it doesn't force the user into non-native device modes of interaction (e.g., 1280 pixels wide means the user on the iPhone will be doing a lot of horizontal scrolling and zooming). So not a re-definition; just an additional meaning. On 2012-07-08, at 1:58 PM, Dave Caroline wrote: I always understood responsive to be opposed to sluggish and a reference to speed. Do I see a redefinition starting up? Dave Caroline -- -- --- Matthew Reidsma GVSU Web Services Librarian 616.331.3577 :: @mreidsma
Re: [CODE4LIB] responsiveness and Wordpress
Shaun,
Good point. I'll do a little explanation of what I mean:
Responsive design uses three techniques for developing interfaces that
look good on all screen sizes:
1. Flexible grids (your design is grid-based and flexible)
2. Fluid images (images scale depending on screen size)
3. Media Queries (a new addition to CSS3, supported by all modern browsers)
(I don't want to get into all the details here, but if folks want to
learn more about responsive design, I recommend Ethan Marcotte's
seminal article on A List Apart:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/ )
The last element of responsive design, media queries, allows you to
make parts of your style sheet conditional to the user's device. The
most common media query is one based on screen size. For example, you
can have certain styles appear only once the screen is wider than 600
pixels by using a min-width query:
@media screen and (min-width: 600px) {
/* Conditional styles here */
}
Determining what sizes to make these styles appear (what Marcotte
calls break points) is a tricky business. Often, people use common
devices to dictate the places where styles will change. So they might
have a break point at 480px (iPhone landscape), 600px (7 tablets in
portrait), 768px (iPad portrait), 1024px (iPad landscape, desktop),
and 1200px (wide screen). This is often how frameworks like Bootstrap
and Foundation are built: using predetermined break points that are
based on device sizes rather than the content of your site.
Because every site's content is different, breaking things at device
widths (like 768px) might not really work for your content. While
those screen sizes are pretty common now (or rather, were more common
a year or two ago), with the proliferation of devices with varied
screen sizes, locking things to screen size is as losing a proposition
as browser or device sniffing. Your content should dictate your break
points, rather than the devices you assume your users are carrying.
My rule of thumb: design in the browser, and add break points when
your site starts to look stupid.
So if you want to start out with Bootstrap, that's great. Just
remember that when you put your actual content into your site, adding
media queries at 768px or 600px might not make sense, because your
particular content might look stupid at 680px. And you never know what
device will be released next year with a 680px wide screen. Be
prepared to adapt those break point values as you tweak.
Again, I talk more about this in my talk, which has video, audio,
references, and slides available at
http://matthewreidsma.com/articles/23 (I actually don't advise using
pixels, since they are not flexible and resizable like ems, but you
can listen to the talk to hear more about that.)
If you want to see responsive sites in action, my blog above as well
as the LOL Library demo site ( http://lollibrary.org ) can be demoed
by resizing your browser window.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Matthew
On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Shaun Ellis sha...@princeton.edu wrote:
Matthew,
I don't think the following statement is helpful to the folks on this list
without further explanation:
Bootstrap or Foundation are great frameworks for starting quickly with
responsive design, but you'll get the most out of your site if you do
the work yourself, based on your own content.
Why are using a CSS framework like Bootstrap and doing the work yourself
mutually exclusive? Why not save time by using the framework and then
customize it to fit your own content?
--
Shaun D. Ellis
Digital Library Interface Developer
Firestone Library, Princeton University
voice: 609.258.1698 | sha...@princeton.edu
--
--
---
Matthew Reidsma
GVSU Web Services Librarian
616.331.3577 :: @mreidsma
[CODE4LIB] Win glory and honor! Give a talk at Code4Lib Midwest!
Hello all, Code4Lib Midwest is coming up next month, and we still have plenty of slots open for attendees and presenters. C4L Midwest is a low-key but wildly informative two days of geeking out with both techie and non-techie library-types over a wide range of creative solutions to the problems all of us are facing. If you've been working on solving problems at your library using technology, whether in code or microchips, consider giving us a little talk about your progress, your successes, or your failures. It's a fun, supportive, low-pressure environment with people who will laugh when you make a joke about Quirks Mode. Sign up today! Glory and honor can be yours! http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/Midwest#Programming -- -- --- Matthew Reidsma, Code4Lib Midwest 2012 Programming Lord GVSU Web Services Librarian 616.331.3577 :: @mreidsma
Re: [CODE4LIB] Bootstrap vs Foundation
Jessie, Bootstrap and Foundation were a bit overkill for our needs, so we rolled our own UI pattern library for CSS based on the MailChimp UI Pattern Library: http://gvsu.edu/library/ui It's on Github, if you want a closer look: https://github.com/gvsulib/UI-Patterns -- --- Matthew Reidsma Web Librarian @ gvsu.edu/library 616-331-3577 :: @mreidsma Why is this email so short? :: http://matthewreidsma.com/email On Friday, May 11, 2012 at 9:30 AM, Ross Singer wrote: Hi Jessie, We've been using Bootstrap for a couple of our projects at Talis and I have been incredibly pleased with it. I have zero design sense (designed by East German engineers for East German engineers - no offense to East German engineers), and Bootstrap manages to make my clumsy, ham-handed, functionality-first-aesthetic-never designs, look decent (even if they *all* look like Twitter's demo app). If I can do nothing else, design-wise, I can add to 12 (usually). I haven't used Foundation, but that being said, looking over the documentation for it, I don't see any fundamental differences between it or Bootstrap functionality-wise. What I *do* see, offhand, is much better documentation regarding the css being introduced. Bootstrap's documentation is (overall) pretty good, but I feel there are TONS of UI thingies in the css that aren't mentioned in the docs and my desire to trawl through the css and try things (or understand by looking at it) just isn't there. So, basically, I think it doesn't make much of a difference either way, but the documentation-thing *seems* (at-a-glance) to possibly favor Foundation (although Bootstrap may be better in the things it has documentation for - not sure). -Ross. On May 10, 2012, at 7:17 PM, Jessie Keck wrote: Hi all, We are about to develop a set of style-guids and templates for our locally developed applications that will have a unified look and feel. One manifestation of this will be a ruby gem that we will use for all of our rails apps (including Blacklight and Hydra applications). As we were discussing the approaches we may take for this, the question of basing our designs on a library such as Bootstrap or Foundation came up. I have heard a lot about Bootstrap in the C4L community, but very little about Foundation. Does anybody here have extensive experience w/ both libraries and would recommend one over the other? We are already leaning towards Bootstrap as many in the Blacklight and Hydra communities have expressed interest or are using it already. Also, some folks locally who have used or investigated both libraries have had positive experiences in either case. Understanding that this may be boil down to a simple matter of taste, I wonder what opinions you all have. Thank you, - Jessie Keck Stanford University
[CODE4LIB] Create Scoped Searches in Summon
Hello list, I put together a tool over the past few weeks for our liaison librarians to quickly and easily generate custom, scoped search boxes in Summon. The interface is a simple HTML page that uses javascript to generate the form code dynamically. You can see it in action here: http://gvsulib.com/labs/custom_summon We thought this might be useful for the Summon community, so we've released the source through a GPL license. You can download the source files from Github: https://github.com/mreidsma/Custom-Summon-Searches The best part is that since it's written in HTML and Javascript, you can run it on your local machine. Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, --- Matthew Reidsma Web Services Librarian Grand Valley State University Libraries 616.331.3577 http://gvsu.edu/library
