Dame Nellie Melba and LIS 541
I came the the MLIS program with little in the way of HTML experience. In fact, I quickly learned how to make a Webpage just prior to my first residency just so I could say to myself, yes, I have had some HTML experience. Here is where I started.
At the time I began the program, my entire cadre was required to take LIS 541 so that we would all be up-to-speed, technologically speaking. I was thrilled with the course, even though I was white-knuckled most of the time. I had done virtually none of what was asked of me in my previous life. Handcoding HTML, installing and using mail and chat programs, making and using style sheets, ... the list goes on. Look at the syllabus for that course, and you will see a list of things I had never done.
For our final project, we were required to write a Website of at least seven pages using many of the techniques we had learned throughout the challenging course. I chose to honor my first cousin, three times removed, the opera singer Dame Nellie Melba. I used images, worked in complex JavaScript, included audio files and made tables in various configurations all by hand. I am, at this time, not an advanced Webpage writer, but I can and do make Websites and I will forever be grateful that I was required to learn how to handcode first, even though I use DreamWeaver now. Thank you, Scott Barker.
In general as a result of LIS 541 and the rest of the LIS courses I have taken I can now:
| Write HTML | Use DreamWeaver |
Create streaming media |
| Write some UNIX | Use a variety of online communication tools |
Install, update and troubleshoot apps |
The Dame
Please visit my LIS 541 Website here. It is best viewed on IE for the JavaScript (for better or worse...), but it works in FireFox.
I gave some thought to revising the site. It is rather burdened with JavaScript, most of the links are difficult if not impossible to read, and the navigation is not friendly. But then I decided: let's have a look at how things have changed for me. The Nellie Melba site was created to the best of my abilities and sensibilities then. I have since become a fan of the "clean" and sparkling spare Website (in part due to Terry Brooks influence), so take this portfolio site as a significant example of what a little instruction, experience and hindsight will do.
Feedback
I have no artifact feedback here, but one of my cadre, a huge music enthusiast, shared my Website with his wife and they both enjoyed it very much, being fans of Nellie Melba themselves.