CONTENTdm Customization

Yesterday I attended training in Indianapolis on how to customize the CONTENTdm interface. It was very useful. Customization requires editing HTML files, and on occasion, editing some PHP. I wish my Design of Complex Web Sites had taught me PHP instead of Ruby, since I'm not in a position to program Ruby anyway, and even if I could, would not be using it here. Then again, learning Ruby actually did help me understand the PHP code.

We currently use CONTENTdm for digital images at Earlham. Prior to my arrival, the Plowshares Project was finished, and right now students are working on getting Earlham College and Friends United Meeting materials online. I will link to the site when they are done.

CONTENTdm has many uses, yet I worry about what we will use down the road. It is not a long term preservation solution; it is good for displaying images and increasing access and description of our collections, particularly photographs. While there are a large number of text documents in Plowshares, I'm not sure how I feel about uploading more manuscript collections in the software. I just hope if we get something new, or CONTENTdm dies, we can easily migrate to a new system.