One of the reasons I’ve been so absent on RSS4Lib over the past eighteen months or so is a larger project I was working on: a book, Drupal in Libraries, Volume 14 of the Tech Set ® series edited by Ellyssa Kroski.
The book is written as a primer for technically proficient librarians who want to learn more about Drupal and manage a web site using it, but who are not themselves coders. The only time you’ll need to be typing commands directly into a terminal emulator (and even that is optional) is to install and decompress the Drupal software. The rest of the book is focused on what you can do with Drupal from the administrative interface. The book has 10 chapters, as follows:
- Introduction
- Types of Solutions Available (how and where you can get Drupal, seek development and/or technical support)
- Planning (this chapter is available as a free sample)
- Social Mechanics (working with your organization to build a successful project)
- Implementation (this is the bulk of the text and walks you through the basics of adding and configuring modules, creating content types, and working with various features such as views and panels)
- Marketing (how to sell Drupal to your staff and to your IT organization, and how to sell the site to your patrons once it’s launched)
- Best Practices (tips and tricks for building a secure and stable Drupal site)
- Metrics (measuring the success of your new site)
- Developing Trends (up-and-coming tools and modules to be aware of)
- Recommended Reading (an annotated bibliography of books, articles, and learning resources
The book also has a companion web site, with additional information and discussion forums. If you have questions about the book, or Drupal in a library setting, stop on by.
You can purchase the book through Amazon.com, from Neal-Schuman, or through your favorite bookseller.