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A proposal for a talk at the Code4Lib conference
== Getting the Content out of CONTENTdm: Building a Modular UI Template for Digital Collections ==
* Devin Becker, University of Idaho, dbecker@uidaho.edu
With the advent of iterations 6 and 6.1, CONTENTdm redesigned the basic user interfaces for individual collections, improving on what was already a robust and reliable system for archiving and displaying digital items. The majority of the items in these collections, however, still rarely see the light of a user's screen. Moreover, the typical modes for browsing these collections within the system are geared primarily to those who are already familiar with such systems or who have a specific need to see certain items.
To invite more casual browsing and easier discovery of our collections, the University of Idaho Library's Digital Initiatives department designed a scalable and modular interface for all of our collections with an increased emphasis on the time, location, and larger display of our images and other digital items. To do so, we used free and easy-to-use Javascript libraries and online applications (including Jquery, Google Fusion Tables, Simile Timeline, ImageFlow, and Tagcrowd.com), together with several, simple XSL stylesheets that utilize the metadata and persistent linking capabilities of the CONTENTdm database, to design a basic template with several browsing options (timeline, map, tag cloud, etc.) that can be used for any collection. This talk will detail the coding, methods, and metadata implemented for the redesign.
[[Category: Code4Lib2012]]
