Week 8 Readings

For someone who has never really used HTML, this tutorial was great. It started out with a basic explanation of what the different parts of the code mean (start tag, end tag, element content, etc) and also how it is important to use lowercase tags. It also made it clear that the most important tags define headings, paragraphs and line breaks and to always be aware of these and not to skip end tags. The numerous examples to play with were very helpful, along with the 'useful tips' located throughout the tutorial. The one thing I noticed is that it is VERY important to spell correctly in the code. That's what I kept screwing up the most but am confident now that I can do some basic HTML coding. The Cheatsheet provided and the Quick List provided by the tutorial will be good reference sheets to use in the future.

The CSS tutorial was a bit tougher to get my head around but I figure the better I get at HTML, the more the CSS stuff will become easier.

The CMS article was interesting in that it explained clearly why consistency is so important in CMS and how the library guides work better when there are standards for content, layout, etc. With standards in place, librarians can now focus more on content, which I would think they prefer. The article explained all the different steps involved in going from FrontPage to the new CMS and plans for the future.