Rachel E. Vacek

• MLIS
• Head of Department at University of Houston

p>Since 2009, tens of thousands of rare and unique items have been made available online for research through the University of Houston Digital Library. Six years later, the Libraries' new digital initiatives call for a more dynamic digital repository infrastructure that is extensible, scalable, and interoperable. The Libraries’ mission and the man...

Presiden't Column: Making an Impact in the Time That is Given to Us

President's Message: Twitter Nodes to Networks: Thoughts on the #litaforum

President’s Message: UX Thinking and the LITA Member Experience

Smartphone users expect the presentation of Web sites on their mobile browsers to look and feel like native applications. With the pressure on library Web developers to produce app-like mobile sites, there is often a rush to get a site up without considering the importance of reusing or even restructuring the data driving the Web sites. An addition...

Drupal is a powerful, but complex, Web Content Management System, being adopted by many libraries. Installing Drupal typically involves adding additional modules for flexibility and increased functionality. Although installing additional modules does increase functionality, it inevitably complicates usability. At the University of Houston Libraries...

Library intranets require flexibility and efficiency and enhance the internal communication and collaborative nature of creating and organizing the institution's information. At the University of Houston Libraries, the focus was on public services, so little attention was given to the intranet—the tool every department relied on for quick access to...