Assignment 3: Interview transcript

For my assignment, I interviewed Dixie Henning. She is the IT person for the Houston County Public Library System. Within the last year to the last year and a half, this library system has implemented the CMS Wordpress. The following is the transcript of my interview:

Question 1: How and where did you hear about CMS?

Dixie: We discussed CMS in college when I was working towards my degree. That was it until later, about a year to two years ago, the branch manager at one of the Houston County libraries mentioned switching to one , specifically Wordpress, for our website.

 

Question 2: What were your motivations for adopting the CMS?

 

Dixie: Wordpress is very user friendly. The old website was not very interactive and their was no social media on it. The library director of our county system decided to implement it and I had to see how feasible it was. I contacted the GPLS (Georgia Public Library System) to see if they could support Wordpress on their server and found out they could. So I contacted them again and had them get it running. Lucas (the branch manager of one of the Houston libraries) and I then built a webpage to display.

 

Question 3: What was the criteria for choosing this CMS?

 

Dixie: We wanted a cheap, user-friendly program. It also needed to support social media - specifically a blog. Lucas had some familiarity with Wordpress and it looked easy to use and most of all: it was free. It also had to be supported by the GPLS server. So Wordpress met all these needs and we went with it.

 

Question 4: What are the benefits or advantages of using a CMS like Wordpress over the old webpage?

 

Dixie: Previously, the old webpage was constructed with HTML. You had to have coding experience to change or update the website. This meant basically only I was able to change the website. With Wordpress, it is very user friendly, so you don't have to know HTML to manipulate it. It also has interactive contents and supports a blog. Also, it was much more difficult to add plug-ins to the previous website. With Wordpress, adding very complicated plug-ins such as Mango,  Overdrive, or any other large software is very simple - no code involved. It would have taken a lot of time on the old webpage to incorporate all the resources our library has available. A lot of HTML writing.
 

Question 5: How is the learning curve of the software?

Dixie: There was a learning curve, but it was small. Most everyone could figure it out with little to no trouble. Our system ordered a Wordpress for Dummies book so that if any questions came up, we could also use this to solve problems.

Question 6: Was any formal training done?

Dixie: No, no formal training was needed. The people that would be using it just played around with it and if they had any questions, they just asked me. But, honestly, there weren't that many questions.

Question 7: How many people have access to your administration page?

Dixie: We have two parts: the webpage itself and the blog. Three people have access to the webpage: myself and the director and a branch manager. Five people have access to the blog: those that write blogs for the county, the director, and a branch manager.

Question 8: Is your CMS open sourced? And how long have you used it?

Dixie: Yes. It is open sourced. And we have used Wordpress for about one and one-half year.

Question 9: Do you have any concerns about it not being supported in the future?

Dixie: No, not really. Wordpress is well supported and is a pretty popular service.

Question 10: Does it have limitations?

Dixie: Some forms, or plug-ins, you have to pay for. Other than that, I'm sure there are some, but for our needs, we really haven't run into them.

Question 11: So it satisfies all your needs?

Dixie: Yes, I am happy with how it was set up. We even added a testing site that helps with any changes made that lets us see the results before it goes live. So yes, so far, so good.

Question 12: Have you seen an increase in the web usage for your library?

Dixie: Yes, we offer so much more now on our website that people access our site with regularity. For example, we now post and update the children's events and programs calendar every month, so this alone gets many views. One downside to using a CMS is that we get a lot more spam. I have to go through and check for comments everyday and delete all the spam. This can get frustrating.

Question 13: Are there other security issues that come with using Wordpress?

Dixie: Other than the spam, we really haven't encountered any. The GPLS is in-charge of the server end and I know they have security features in place. I have heard of some site using CMS getting spoofed. Or in other words, someone has hi-jacked the URL and the link sends them somewhere other than the site. But this hasn't happened to us and hopefully with our security, it won't.

Question 14: Would you choose a different CMS given the chance?

Dixie: I would probably do a lot of research first. I would probably look into Drupal or some other equivalent software. But Wordpress is free, so I can't complain. Really, it depends on what you want the site to do - for us it is fine.

For this assignment, Dixie gave her permission that her name and the library name could be used. Thanks and appreciation to her, for being willing to participate and take the time to answer my questions. The webpage is www.houpl.org