The NIH Library was the first major NIH website to use the CIT CMS service and acted as the model for future development projects. The site contains a number of interesting features that display the power of CMS and make maintenance of the site almost non-existant.
Background
The NIH Library had already been working on a new website focused on making many of the back-end tools and databases available to NIH staff on line. They had developed databases for their resources -- journals, books, catalogs, etc. Another intended use for the new site was to promote their training classes and communicate new features and changes to their clients.
Our Approach
The NIH Library homepage was designed to pull information for a variety of other sources -- Announcements and Features have their own interfaces for creating and editing content specific to those sections, training classes are pulled from a separate database, and Quick Links and Sign-Up for sections are also generated dynamically.
However, the real focus of the site is in the Research Tools section, where the journals, databases, books, and Internet resources available through the Library are easily accessible to NIH staff in a variety of ways, allowing users to search for specific titles or browse the contents through multiple paths. Because we are able to define content as NIH-specific and control access transparently, NIH staff can link directly to publications without any issues relating to licensing restrictions.
Results
The new NIH Library website was launched at the Library's Open House held on February 24, 2004. The site was demoed to a stand-room only crowd as one of the highlights of the Open House. Since the launch, the site has received praise from both Library staff personnel who manage the site and their clients who use the site. A number of new features have been implemented, and we expect the site to continue to add enhancements as time and money allows.
http://nihlibrary.nih.gov
