The redesign project reached a real milestone late last week, with the official handoff of the website from NewCity to the Rutgers team. This follows an intense period of testing, during which we worked closely with NewCity to ensure that the site was built and working as planned. We’re really pleased with what they’ve delivered and think it will suit our needs well. We’ll continue to have NewCity’s support over the next few months, both for development work and to consult about content. Amy has been working with subject matter experts and content teams from across the libraries and is excited that the real work of content building is finally underway.
The team have targeted Wednesday, July 7 for a launch date. This is a huge project with a lot of dependencies, but we’re feeling fairly confident that we’ll hit this target. Several weeks prior to launch, Amy and the project team will be working with front-line staff and faculty to do site walk-throughs and answer any questions about where to find various pieces of information and how to perform common tasks. We’ll also be reaching out to external stakeholders to announce the new site in mid-June. The project team will be developing plans for that outreach over the next few weeks.
In related news, planning for the libraries-wide adoption of LibCal Events is underway, and the project to develop a new subject vocabulary is wrapped up, thanks to a lot of thoughtful librarian involvement. Subject specialists are in the process of assigning updated lists of subject-specific resources and choosing top recommendations for our users. That project will also set us up to effectively connect users with the appropriate librarian for their subject.
As always, you’re welcome to reach out anytime with questions or comments. Send us an email: webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu.
