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[[Category:Code4Lib2015]]
[[Category:Talk Proposals]]
== Making It Work: Problem Solving Using Open Source at a Small Academic Library ==
* Adam Strohm, astrohm@iit.edu, Illinois Institute of Technology
* Max King, mking9@iit.edu, Illinois Institute of Technology
The Illinois Institute of Technology campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, and contains a building, Mies van der Rohe's S.R. Crown Hall, that was named a National Historic Landmark in 2001. Creating a digital resource that can adequately showcase the campus and its architecture is challenge enough in and of itself, but doing so as a two-person team of relative newcomers, at a university library without dedicated programmers on staff, ups the ante considerably.
The challenges of technical know-how, staff time, and funding are nothing new to anyone working on digital projects at a university library, and are amplified when doing so at a smaller institution. This talk covers the conception, development, and design of the campus map site that was built, concentrating on the problem-solving strategies developed to cope with limited technical and financial resources.
We'll talk about our approach to development with Open Source software, including Omeka, along with the Neatline and Simile Timeline plugins. We'll also discuss the juggling act of designing for mobile mapping functionality without sacrificing desktop design, weighing the costs of increased functionality versus our ability to time-effectively include that functionality, and the challenge of building a site that could be developed iteratively, with an eye towards future enhancement and sustainability. Finally, we’ll provide recommendations for other librarians at smaller institutions for their own efforts at digital development.