Content management: introduction to VINE 127 (1)
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/03055720210734786 |
| Pages | 3-5 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| Author | Andrew Cox |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Content management:
introduction to VINE
127
(1)
by Andrew Cox
What is content management?
It is perhaps easiest to define Content
Management (CM) in terms of the benefits
organisations seek from it.
.The most commonly cited benefit of CM
is that of allowing anyone to contribute
content to a website, without their needing
any technical knowledge, and yet for
control (workflow and approval) to be
maintained. Typically contributors add
text through a simple fielded web form.
This breaks the bottleneck of everything
going through the webmaster, and is a step
towards achieving what Browning calls
the ``write enabled web''. Layout and
formatting are handled separately from
inputting data. And ultimate editorial
control is left in the hands of a webmaster.
Achieving this implies security: to
distinguish who has the right to author and
edit content, who to approve and publish,
review and withdraw it.
.Another major benefit organisations seek
through CM is the ability to maintain a
website more efficiently by being able to
quickly change the look and feel or
structure of the site, while ensuring that
the integrity of internal links are
maintained. This need is most pressing
where data changes quickly and the owner
wants to make choices about how to
structure the site frequently too.
.A third benefit commonly sought through
CM is easy reuse of the same data in
multiple places or its presentation in
multiple forms. The ideal is that raw content
and presentation are separated, so that by
creating and maintaining a single object,
multiple presentations of it are maintained.
Through CM the same content can appear
as a word document or in html or pdf, or
indeed in new as yet unthought of formats.
Equally access could be through the web,
but it could be through WAP on a handheld
device. It could be information personalised
for the user or offered in formats ready for
processing by other systems.
What is content?
In the first instance CM is most obviously
concerned with text, and especially with
managing a website. But the requirement exists
equally to manage other content such as
bibliographic data, digital images, learning
materials and links. In this sense librarians have
been doing content management of bibliographic
data for years. What is changing is the diversity
of electronic content we need to manage.
Levels of CM
Seen in termsof these benefits, CM is desirable for
all sizes of web site and all complexities of
application. It could mean a highly functional
Content Management System (CMS) like
TeamSite (see Mike Lowndes' conference
presentation)or an enterprise changing IT solution
backed by a content management strategy, as
envisaged by White in his paper in this issue. It
could equally be quick and easy use tools to
distribute the entering of content like blogger (see
the conferencepresentation given by MarkKerr or
http://www.etoolkits.co.uk/econtent/) or a web
enabled database of ejournallinks (as described by
Mike Gardner and Stephen Pinfield at the
conference) or an intranet developed using Zope
(described by Anne Ramsden at the conference,
and earlier in VINE 124).
The case studies in this issue further illustrate
typical CM applications, all in contexts most
librarians will be familiar with:
.Evans describes a system to publish
directories of information about suppliers,
closely integrated with a newsletter. Most
libraries probably produce several such
small directories, and will be migrating
through the same evolutionary path as
Evans in tackling theproblem of presenting
the information through the web.
#MCB UP Limited, ISSN 0305-5728
VINE, Volume 32 Number 2 2002, Issue 127 Ð 3
To continue reading
Request your trial