1. What is a CMS (give at least 2 examples)?

For many organizations, the Internet is the preferred method of delivering content to users. At first, this content was manually coded HTML web pages. These pages required a certain level of understanding of how to program and they had to be manually updated regularly.

As the amount of content increased, and web-based technologies developed, it became possible to automate certain aspects of the webpage development/maintenance process. This is the key goal of content management systems (CMS). They support, by automation, the efficient and effective delivery of content via the Internet (Browning & Lowndes, 2001).

Browning and Lowndes (2001) identify four basic functions of a CMS. The first is authoring, which is the creation of content. One way that a CMS automates this process is by separating the content from the design of the page. Thus, “deskilling the task of putting information on the web . . . reduces the task to no more than ‘filling in the boxes’ on a web form or a word-processor document” (Browning & Lowndes, 2001, p. 3).

The second function of a CMS, workflow, is the editing of content after creation and before publication. The third function is storage. Once content is created, a CMS can save it in a central repository. The benefit of this is that the content can be easily reused or repurposed for future projects. Furthermore, versioning of content allows restoration of lost or corrupted information. Storage can also include breaking content into meaningful components (e.g., title, link, description) that are stored separately. The final function of a CMS is to publish content as a webpage or some other type of electronic object (e.g., PDF, DOC, etc.) (Browning & Lowndes, 2001).

In my job as a library assistant in an academic library, I have learned to use several different kinds of CMSs. For example, the CoURses System, which is based on a relational database and Cold Fusion code, was an in-house development project at the library. The purpose of the system is to dynamically generate a webpage for every course taught at the River Campus of the University of Rochester. The library also uses DocuShare, a proprietary document management system that functions as an intranet for our library staff. A third CMS that I have begun learning this year is Drupal. This is an open source product that will eventually be the underlying framework of the River Campus library’s website.

References

Browning P. & Lowndes M. (2001). JISC Techwatch Report: Content Management systems.Retrieved July 27, 2008 from http://fzki.uniag.sk/11ICT/02Informations/CMSRelated/tsw_01-02_CMS.pdf