Victoria serves as "curator" of the first portal we established (Bioinformatics). Here are a few comments she made on the experience:
Starting the Portal
For me, the first and most challenging step in starting the bioinformatics research portal was creating a basic subject classification scheme: I had to have the classification scheme in place before I could begin adding resources because part of the data entry function links the resources to a specific classification. At that stage, the expertise and help of bioinformatics faculty, and specifically the bioinformatics library liaison, was invaluable. They helped me make sure that the initial classification scheme had covered the whole field of bioinformatics. Once the collection of portal resources continued to grow, the classification scheme has evolved into the combination of the resources grouped by content and the resources grouped by format. To group resources by content and by format and then cross-link them was a conscious decision on my part and it was based on my observations of information search behavior of library patrons.
Marketing and Implementation
The first step in marketing and implementing the portal was posting an announcement to the bioinformatics faculty’s listserv, then linking the portal to the departmental web site, and sending an announcement to the campus’s online newsletter. Word-of-mouth publicity and personal e-mail also provided the opportunity for marketing the new service. I introduced the portal to faculty and students during orientation sessions, library instruction classes, and individual research consultations. Blog entries have served as a great tool for making announcements about new book arrivals, resources, and research tools that are important for the bioinformatics community. They has also served as a valuable platform for promoting University-wide events, such as the celebration of an Open Access Day. Support for and interest in the portal was immediate and enthusiastic. “An impressive resource!” “A great tool!” “An extremely useful one-stop place to search for subject resources,” were just a few remarks I have received from various bioinformatics faculty members.
Maximizing the usage
Research portals can be very effective communication tools for reaching the faculty in other departments. Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary program and the research done within the Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology overlaps with the research conducted within other Mason’s departments such as the Molecular and Microbiology Department (the drug design and development research) and the Krasnow Institute (research in neuroinformatics). To maximize the usage of the bioinformatics research portal, I made sure that faculty from these departments were aware of the new resource. I also linked the portal to relevant subject infoguides for maximum exposure.
Ongoing Management
Some librarians are reluctant to begin a research portal because of the effort it takes to update and maintain content and because they don’t want to depend too much on a university web master for troubleshooting. However, WordPress software eliminates most of this anxiety. The power of the portal lies not only in the ease of adding and editing content, but also in its ability to encourage the interactivity between the librarian and the portal users by allowing the users to post comments and suggestions about the resources and blog entries. After receiving basic WordPress training, I, as the curator of the portal, was able to maintain the portal quite independently from the university web master. I can easily add content to the portal, edit, delete, and duplicate resources, as well as add blog entries and images, and start forum discussions. WordPress software helps make these tasks easy enough for anyone to do it. Also, a portal can be developed collaboratively by a community of authors. Maintaining a research portal requires three ingredients: inspiration, motivation, and dedication. One of the biggest challenges for librarians who are often short on time is to update the portal’s blog frequently.