Drupal
November 11, 2008 by Site Admin
Drupal is free software that anyone can use to organize content on the web. This could be a wonderful thing for libraries, since it is easily accessible and there is no cost involved.
Libraries are using Drupal to organize information in interesting and creative ways.
Cowles Library (the undergraduate library at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa) has used Drupal to manage their content in a clean, usable way. They have used several modules (all of which are also free to use), and they are responsive to other libraries questions who are trying to use Drupal.
Drupal allows libraries to manage all their content in one place–if a library has a website, a blog, and a staff intranet (accessible to staff only, for important information that is useful to staff), they can keep all these things on Drupal in one place. They do not have to have content stored in 3 different places. Each library controls access to their content, but it is possible for a library’s users to interact (by leaving comments, tagging, etc) so that libraries and their users can learn from each other.
Some of the drawbacks to Drupal are that it is not vendor supported (since it is open software), and if any modules are added to it, the module version has to match the Drupal version (If you have Drupal 4, you can’t use a module designed for Drupal 5). One of the libraries that use Drupal mentioned that they are concerned because their website developer left, and they are having a hard time finding a new person that has heard of or is experienced with Drupal. With any new technology, libraries want something that is sustainable and can be maintained. The University of Calgary Library (http://library.ucalgary.ca) has to scrap their Drupal site every night so that they can update content on it (this information was last reported on October 10, 2008 on http://drupalib.interoperating.info/node/158, so they could have fixed this problem by now). This does not seem very user-friendly for staff.
For libraries to utilize Drupal, they need to be committed to it, have staff that are knowledgable about using it, and able to get both staff and users to accept it.