From the Editor: ALCTS News Unveils a New Look

ALCTS News has a new home and a new look at alcts.ala.org/news. We’ve streamlined article pages and adopted a more responsive interface in order to create a more immersive reading experience.

When ALCTS News Online transitioned to ALCTS News in September 2013, the site was built in ALA’s primary content management system (CMS), Drupal, as a microsite of the overall ALA website. Drupal is a powerful CMS—more powerful, in fact, than than ALCTS News requires. Furthermore, because the site was so tightly coupled to the ALA site overall, we had much less control over its look than we would have liked. After all ALA sites underwent a responsive redesign in October 2017, making them friendlier for viewing on screens of all sizes, ALCTS News still needed a more substantial overhaul. We therefore worked with ALA’s Information Technology & Telecommunication Services (ITTS) to give ALCTS News a new home in WordPress, where we would have more control over the the publication’s look.

The new design makes reading more immersive, exploring more intuitive, and sharing easier. Article pages aren’t cluttered with a sidebar, menus stacked upon menus, and buttons galore. Instead, the primary focus is the content itself.

From an individual article, you can follow your nose to other articles that interest you. Want to read more from the same section? Click on the category for Features, Announcements, Columns, or Conference News.

If you want to see more articles about the same ALCTS member group or community, click on the tag below the article for that group, perhaps the ALCTS New Members Interest Group or the Preservation & Reformatting Section (PARS).

Contributors are clearly identified with a byline, and all contributors have a page showcasing their articles—not only the ALCTS Office and ALCTS News editorial staff, but also reporters on conference programs, like Ann Kearney.

Perhaps most importantly, it’s easier to start a conversation about what you read in ALCTS News. Now you can leave a comment without creating a username and password for the ALCTS News site. Additionally, you can share any article with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn using share buttons.

We’re eager to hear from you, our readers, about what you think of the new design. Send us your feedback or report a problem via our contact us form. You may also contact me directly at alctsnews@lists.ala.org.