September 21st, 2010
On Monday, September 20, we were excited to receive this email, sent by the Worthington Public Libraries (Ohio).
Thank you for your interest in the Evanced Events Importer Drupal module. I’m delighted to announce that an alpha version of the module is now available for download on drupal.org: http://drupal.org/project/evanced_events_importer
We hope you will download it, give it a try and share your feedback! We welcome co-maintainers to help us maintain and enhance the module in the future—please get in touch if you’d like to work with us.
Happy events importing!
Kara
Kara Reuter
Digital Library Manager
www.worthingtonlibraries.org
We are excited for this new module and can’t wait to see how other libraries use it to bring together Events and Drupal. If you have any questions, you can contact Kara Reuter at kreuter@worthingtonlibraries.org.
Congratulations, Worthington Libraries! And thank you for being an important part of the Evanced community!
December 21st, 2009 evanced
We got a lot of comments to our post about Worthington’s Drupal integration. Suggestions about additional CMS systems and such. While we certainly will look at what we can do to assist in those areas we are not likely to be deploying any new such CMS integration widgets ourselves in the next 6 – 9 months. However we are certainly open to supporting customers and other integration partners who want to do their own integration with our systems.
Here is a link to information on our Knowledge base explaining how our XML tool set works. This is the same tool set that libraries such as Worthington (OH), Howard County(MD), Orange County (FL), and King County (WA) have used to create their custom integrations. Support for the use of these tool sets is included in the support of your software so our team can help if you get stuck or have some trouble with any of those features.
December 15th, 2009 evanced
Increasingly we’re seeing emails that begin with “We’re a Drupal shop and want to use Evanced products too…” Here at Evanced we’re excited by the potential of Drupal and what libraries are doing with it.
The Worthington Libraries (Ohio) has integrated their Events calendar with their website which uses Drupal as its content management system. You can view their calendar at http://www.worthingtonlibraries.org/calendar. What you’ll see might surprise you. The front end is powered by Drupal, but the back end is Evanced Solutions’ Events product and uses all of the filtering, registration, and management features available.
For Kara Reuter, Digital Library Manager at Worthington Libraries, the choice to use both Drupal and Events was an easy one. “We chose Drupal because it’s a really powerful content management system and can be extended in almost any way you can imagine. Lots of other libraries are using Drupal these days, so there’s a good community we can turn to for ideas and support.”
Worthington Libraries wanted to keep the look and feel of their website, while taking advantage of the functionality Events has to offer. As Ms. Reuter explained, “We chose Events because every time we looked at a library’s online calendar that offered all the features we wanted, it was Events. And the ability to integrate Evanced Solutions’ Room Reservation [software] is essential for our library.”
The development team at Evanced is excited by the possibilities Drupal offers and is working closely with the Worthington Libraries. For Kara Reuter, this collaboration made the switch to a Drupal-driven website even easier. “We love that Evanced has been so open to our ideas and supportive of our efforts to create our Drupal+Events mashup.”
Worthington staff and patrons have given positive feedback on the calendar, which created a look and feel that was constant across both the website and calendar. “Our staff and patrons have definitely commented on the calendar. They’ve given us positive feedback about the pull down menus that allow you to specify just what kind of event you’re looking for,” she explained. “What I love is that the calendar is perfectly integrated in to our Web site in terms of look and feel – I think visual consistency is really important in terms of user experience. Plus, the power of Drupal allows us to create the “Today at the Library” block on the homepage – it’s completely dynamic and as the day progresses the events drop off so that you’re only seeing what’s coming up. We can also pull in event lists on other pages, such as on our Book sale page: http://www.worthingtonlibraries.org/visit/services/booksales (see right sidebar).”
Are you an Events customer that is using Drupal or considering Drupal? Worthington Libraries is seeking partner libraries to help them to prepare their Evanced Events Importer module for release at drupal.org. To learn more contact Kara Reuter at Worthington Libraries, kreuter@worthingtonlibraries.org.