Some of the pressing needs are consistently emerging as follows:

· The ability to repurpose or reuse content in multiple information sets, to deliver the content to both library Internet and Intranet, and for other publications

· The ability to personalize or customize content for different user groups

· The ability to streamline internal workflow and reduce workload resulted in tedious and repetitive works

· The ability to achieve quality control

· The ability to reduce cost of managing the organization web

To meet the above stated needs, the content must be organized in a content management system or application to ensure that the content is managed effectively, retrieved easily, and delivered in different formats.

3. Advantages of WCM Solutions

The benefits of a content management system are realized in that it, automates most standard content and design management tasks, and can boost efficiency and reduce costs in the areas of content updates and accuracy, reinforcement of corporate style and branding, and application development.

3.1 Quantifiable Benefits

1) Reduced resource requirements, reduced site maintenance costs

With the right CMS solution in place, the resources needed for on-going site maintenance are substantially reduced and valued skills can be redirected into developing more business applications. In addition to these savings, there are benefits like people productivity improvements, document production and distribution cost savings, increased market exposure, faster time-to-market of new site development to maintain competitive advantage, and improved quality of customer service.

2) Marketing tool

The Web is at the core of your online marketing and content is at the core of the Web. Your ability to manage this content is what makes your online marketing efforts flexible, easily adaptable to change and most importantly effective. Whatever marketing metrics are important to you - lead generation, site traffic, conversion rates or revenue - they can all be tied to your CMS.

3) Separation of content from design reduces costs of site re-branding

Most libraries want to re-brand their Web venues at least once a year. Potential cost savings for multiple re-brands each year can be significant using content management tools.

4) Easier and centralized access to assets

As a result of implementing content management applications, libraries are achieving higher performance in several areas:

· Time that staff spend finding and using information is reduced (digital asset management)

· Access to management and financial information is faster, empowering senior management to make better, more informed decisions

· More staff are contributing to and accessing the company’s intelligence

· The library’s collective capabilities are better understood.

5) Increased productivity

Productivity is the metric that most libraries try to tie numbers to; ironically it is also one of the hardest to quantify. But it can definitely be done. Productivity measurements usually fall into one of three areas:

· Time - The hours, days, or weeks saved by users of the CMS in creating, editing, reviewing and publishing content.

· Technology - The increase in value from the CMS, versus a manual or legacy process that the application is replacing. For example, with a hosted Web content management solution the productivity of the IT staff increases because the shift from managing hardware and infrastructure of the CMS shifts to more mission critical applications within the enterprise.

· Resources - Simply the better use of your employee resources. Are your marketing resources better used managing content rather than creating it? Or as a twist to the above example, are your IT resources adding more value installing software patches and upgrades rather than creating new functionality within the CMS to support marketing?

3.2 Qualitative Benefits

Content management is now recognized as critical infrastructure for supporting implementation of a successful Web strategy, and is therefore a significant contributor to benefits that are more difficult to quantify but are still of strategic importance.

1) Intellectual property management

Content is an intellectual asset and therefore a CMS can help exploit that asset for business gain and competitive advantage. The right CMS can enable faster time-to-market of content dissemination, building ‘agility’.

2) Perception of the brand and customer impact

Keeping the Web site fresh and interesting will maintain the company’s reputation by representing a professional image consistent with the offline brand.

3) Removing barriers to growth

Content management can remove barriers of new site growth, allowing rapid addition of information that may contribute to improvements in customer service levels, customer retention, user sessions, and revenue streams.

4) The future needs of the library

You can never know exactly what’s waiting around the corner from a competitive, regulatory or industry standpoint. But having a consistent way to access and manage the information within your library can definitely make navigating around those corners a bit easier.

5) Proving what content was live on a given date for legal purposes

Multilingual capabilities to expand Web presence and service other potential customers collaborating with partners to create content (through Web-based systems with flexible user permissions)

4. WCM – Systems Perspective

In order to provide the functionality of a web content management system, the set up must provide three core functions:

· Versioning – A group of individuals should be able to work safely on a document and should be able to recall older versions.

· Workflow – The content goes through review process or quality assurance cycle.

· Integration – Content can be stored in a manageable way and should be reusable.

4.1 Selection of WCMS

Unclear about what needs really are may create confusion in selecting content management solution. Implementing a content management solution, either a WCMS or an application is a commitment in terms of cost and work required. Among many factors, the content management strategies, functionality requirements, your existing resources including funding, in-house technical skills and staffing are major considerations in the implementation of a content management solution. The issues are if you really know the strength and weaknesses in your current process and tools, and if these weaknesses can be fixed by a content management application or it requires a WCMS. The functionality of a WCMS is another issue that comes into play. What functionalities do you hope to gain in a WCMS is largely based on your understanding the product and your needs.

Selecting right technologies to meet these demands has proven to be a challenging process for many libraries. There are a number of issues needed to be considered when select appropriate development tools for the library. In addition to the cost factor, there are hardware and database platform issues (how to be sure if it is suitable for your library). Are the new hardware and database you plan to purchase or develop interoperable with the existing library system? Is the software based on open source standards so that systems integration isn’t a total nightmare? How do content contributors and administrators access the system or application? The focus should be on the areas of particular importance to the library. A failed implementation in the largest library organization recently has indicated a single factor, that is, requirements have not been established before chooses a specific package. Further, some web content management systems or applications can be poorly designed to meet the standards for usability and accessibility.

The rapid proliferation of the commercially available content management systems makes it very difficult to find a vendor that might have the right solution. This has also to do with the factor that many available content management products cannot provide the functionality aimed at library functions and services. The cost to purchase a commercial WCMS is beyond the reach of majority of libraries. Building an in-house system or application using the open source technology seems becoming a trend for solutions. There are benefits and risks associated with a home-grown product. The products may be developed based only on the skill level of the in-house expertise. The script developed may only be understood by these individuals. A sudden departure of the developer may post serious challenges for other staff who continue to manage and maintain the product. However, the cost of developing an in-house solution is minimum.

Many libraries recently have had success with the open source solutions. Again, even with the open source solutions, it requires time to develop the technical background and program skills to install and manipulate.

The key pointes are, when selecting a content management solution, to keep in mind that your ultimate goal is to deliver accurate information and ever-changing resources to satisfy user needs; and they are low-cost and within the scope of the technology, technical expertise, and tools available at the given time.

1) Organizational Culture and Acceptance

Many issues are associated with the move to web content management solutions. These include acceptance of changes, decisions on the allocation of personnel, equipment, assignments and tasks. Boiko suggests asking the following questions when making the strategic changes to the web content management solution:

· Does your staff accept the idea of very organized and constrained processes with known tasks and times?

· How can you maintain people s sense of independence and creativity within these defined cycles?

· How do you recognize that someone doesn t accept the basic premise of workflow?

2) Budgetary Constrains

Budgetary constrains have prevented many libraries from purchasing a commercially available WCMS or outsourcing projects. According to CMSWatch, there are over 200 content management products purporting to manage web content. Among the most significant products selected by the CMSWatch, the base licensing for upper tier products, which tend to focus more narrowly on web content management can cost up to $125-175K for most implementation. The price varies from $1,000 to $10K for low-end products targeting relatively straightforward web content management requirements based on the web site. There is also ongoing software licensing cost in addition to the cost for extra staff time and effort in programming and tweaking the product. Outsourcing not only can be expensive, but the usability of the outsourced web site can be sacrificed. We have all experienced the frustration (long URL, 404 not found, and failed search function to name a few) recently when the largest library organization outsourced its content management system to a vendor. In-house solutions have been viewed as favorable in libraries where technical expertise is available.

4.2 Hype Cycle

A hype cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. The term was coined by Gartner, an analyst/research house, based in the United States that provides opinions, advice and data on the global information technology industry.

The hype cycle for content management stream is below:

Fig 1: Hype Cycle Content Management

Fig 2: Hype Cycle Phases

4.3 Magic Quadrant

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a proprietary research tool developed by Gartner Inc., a US based research and advisory firm. It is designed to provide an unbiased qualitative analysis of a “markets’ direction, maturity, and participants.

Content management is a critical technology that helps organizations manage important documents and other unstructured information. Enterprise content management (ECM) was a $2.3 billion software market in 2005 (based on total software revenue) and has a forecast compound annual growth rate of 12.8% through 2010. However, the vendor landscape continues to consolidate, as shown by several recent high-profile acquisitions, and shift toward infrastructure vendors such as EMC, IBM and Microsoft for enterprise wide deployments. Content management vendors address a spectrum of user needs and offer a range of functionalities, with some focusing on process-centric applications and others on basic content services.

Fig 3: Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management

5 Challenges in WCMs

As the role of the library web continues evolving into a gateway for nearly all library resources and services, the underlying technical structure of the library web site has not grown in parallel with the needed sophistication. Many library web managers are struggling to control their sites using only the primitive tool of HTML, which generates obstacles for libraries to deliver information based on user needs and expectations. Needs for web content management solutions are raised and identified when web managers can no longer maintain web sites with growing content and user demand. The limited library web content management models present a great challenge for libraries in selecting a viable one. In the meantime, many libraries lack the needed technical expertise when attempting to build in-house WCM systems or applications. The funding constrains prevent many libraries from purchasing commercially available web content management systems. There are more questions, both technical and organizational, than answers.

From the web site management perspective, challenges are faced during the entire lifecycle of web content management, from when to use a WCMS, selection of applications, workflow management and quality control to ongoing update and technology refreshment or upgrade.

5.1 Web Master Model No Longer Viable

The traditional web master approach has been proven inefficient because the web master model lacks the flexibility and scalability needed for the new content management solution. This factor has been clear as many libraries conceptualize or reconceptualize and move to web content management solutions. Many libraries today, the management of library web sites is still the same picture as early days: web authors submit pages to the web master who publishes them to the live site. The web master then became responsible for soliciting content, ensuring stylistic conformity, and handling other coordination tasks. In most cases, library web masters are working overtime, and taking on extra responsibilities. While they are dreaming on instant updates and one change for all, they have no extra time to refresh themselves with new technologies, therefore, it hinders the development of new and advanced functionalities as users have expected.

5.2 Workflow Management and Quality Control

An issue directly related to quality control is the rising number of content contributors. Studies have shown that librarians have been long customized to individual creativities. They usually learned their way of designing web sites. They are not used to a set of roles, and follow workflows and pre-designed templates. Therefore, redefining workflows and setting up quality control may be an obstacle for many to overcome culturally and psychologically.

6. Real Life Example - IGCAR Library

The IGCAR (Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research) Library, Kalpakkam has been changing its direction from traditional library to digital library. The library focuses on three different techniques namely digitization, Meta data harvesting, and preservation of digital documents for enabling the resources online.

Fig 4: Content Management System Workflow

Digital library is a collection of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating, searching, enhancement of information storage and retrieval systems. The real digitization job for librarians today is to convert available in-house resources into digital form. IGCAR digital library play pivotal role on dissemination of information for our research community. The E-collection of ICGAR Library includes e-journals, e-reports, FBR (Fast Breeder Reactor) conference proceedings, Standards, CD Resources, and other technical documents. There is a heavy demand from Scientists/Engineers of IGCAR center that, the library’s in-house document must be made available on the network (intranet) so that they can access them any time from their desktops. As part of digitization activity the following in-house resources are digitized and made available to library patrons on the intranet.

· IGC Research Reports

· IGC News letters

· IGC Annual Reports

· Ph.D Thesis - Abstracts

· Internal Reports

CONCLUSION:

Going by the estimates that content management markets which stood at $1 billion in 2003 are expected to reach $2.1 billion by 2010, a CMS has now become a crucial part of achieving business objectives be it educational or professional. So the question is less of if a CMS is right for your business, but rather what CMS is right for your business. Following the right process can assure selection of the appropriate solution and deliver rapid Return on Investment (ROI).

A fully functional and library-oriented web content management system with rich and specialized features geared at library functions and services has yet to come. To move toward the direction, librarians must stop thinking of their web sites as collections of HTML pages. Librarians should view the content on the web site as dynamic resources for information and services that patrons will use in highly individualized ways. The trend is that content production and presentation will continue to separate. Tools that libraries can afford and use quickly to create useful content management applications are now available, but the tools are only part of the picture. The hardest part is the conceptualization of the library web site strategically. Do it right is much more crucial than just do it.

REFERENCES:

1. Holly Yu, Conceptualization of Library Web Content Management: Needs and Challenges

2. Varathan K., Soundararajan E. and Somasekharan M. Content Management System: A Case Study of IGCAR Library

3. Hype Cycle for Content Management, 2006, Gartner

4. Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, 2006, Gartner

5. Paul Browning and Mike Lowndes, JISC Techwatch Report: Content Management Systems

6. The Business Guide for a Web Content Management System – www.crownpeak.com

Received on 03.11.2010 Accepted on 10.11.2010

Asian J. Management 1(2): Oct. – Dec. 2010 page 84-89

INTRODUCTION:

1. Web Content Management (WCM) –

2. Need for Web Content Management