Videoconference · 1 October 2003 · 1 to 4 p.m.
MOLO Regional Library System Training Center

Remote Access Users: A New World of Opportunity for Libraries

Presenting the Virtual Library

Developer Resources

Web Design and Coding

• W3 Schools
  An excellent collection of tutorials, plus coding and scripting reference pages.
• Webmonkey
  Excellent tutorials by respected authors. Site is easy to navigate.
• A List Apart
  Good articles about using CSS and coding to current standards.
• evolt.org
  Contributed articles are often quite informative.
• Dave Raggett's Introduction to CSS
  Raggett is the respected developer of HTMLTidy, software to clean up bad code.
• Eric Meyer on CSS
  Companion web site for the author's book, Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design
• css/edge
  Eric Meyer's original site.
• glasshaus: Cascading Style Sheets
  Companion web site for Owen Briggs' book, Cascading Style sheets: Separating Content from Presentation
• Box Lesson
  Owen Briggs' css layouts and box model tutorials.
• Tantek.com
  Tantek Çelik is a master of CSS. See what is possible.
• glish.com: CSS Layout Techniques
  One of the first CSS layout tutorials, with examples and explanations.
• Blue Robot: Layout Reservoir
  CSS layouts you can use
• Fun with XML
  By Eric Lease Morgan.
• Extensible Markup Language (XML) W3C official site

Meta Tags

• W3 Schools Meta Tags Tutorial
• XHTML Meta Tag Generator by Eddie Traversa

Metadata

• UKOLN Metadata project and resources
  Of particular value are the DC-dot Dublin Core Metadata Editor and DC-assist, a help utility for Dublin Core metadata.
• Dublin Core Metadata Template
  Service of the Nordic Metadata Project
• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
  Mother ship of D.C. metadata development

Usability

• Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox
  Recent articles include: Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster and Usability 101. The author is a purist, but he has updated some of his earlier columns that dealt with now-outmoded rules. He has a sense of humor about his role as usability guru: Nielsen for 2004 - At Least We'll Know Who Won This Time
• Bobby
  Test web pages for barriers to accessibility. Bobby will report potential problems as well as real ones.
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
  World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) accessibility project.
• Section 508
  Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act: Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards. Technical Assistance to Ensure Successful Implementation.
• usable web
• Usability.gov
  Guidelines from the National Cancer Institute.
• Optimal Web Design and Usability News
  The Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL), Wichita State University.
• Web Junction: Accessibility 
  WebJunction is the work of five organizations, led by OCLC.
• clagnut blog: accesskey standards

Validation

• W3C CSS Validator
  Ensures valid CSS code.
• W3C Markup Validation Service
  If you declare a "doctype" in your HTML/XHTML documents, the W3C validator can check them for errors. This is an extremely useful service that will find errors that you overlook.

Recommended Books

Briggs, Owen, Steven Champeon, Eric Costello, and Matt Patterson. Cascading Style Sheets: Separating Content from Presentation. Birmingham, UK: Glasshaus, 2002. (289p. $34.99 ISBN: 1-904151-04-3)

Zeldman, Jeffrey. Designing with Web Standards. Indianapolis: New Riders, 2003. (436p. $35.00 ISBN: 0-7357-1201-8)
A "must read" for anyone who creates web pages. Companion web site: Designing with Web Standards.

Kasdorf, William E., ed. The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. (750p. $34.95 (pbk) ISBN: 0-231-12499-6)
A comprehensive reference book, covering metadata, copyright, XML, and more.

Krug, Steve. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. Indianapolis: New Riders, 2000. (195p. $35.00 ISBN: 0-7897-2310-7)

Musciano, Chuck, and Bill Kennedy. HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide. 5th ed. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2002. (645p. $34.95 ISBN: 059600382X)

Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos. Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web. 2d ed. New York, Addison-Wesley, 1999. (396p. $39.99 ISBN: 0-201-59625-3) 
Becoming dated, but a very accessible work that is organized to be useful as a reference tool. Lie is the originator of the CSS concept.

Lynch, Patrick J. and Sarah Horton. Web Style Guide. 2d ed. Yale University Press, 2001. ($18.95 ISBN: 0-300-08898-1 (pbk) 0-300-09682-8 (cloth))
A basic design book, not a coding book.

Meyer, Eric A. Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design. Indianapolis: New Riders, 2003. (322p. $45.00 ISBN: 0-7357-1245-X)
Good examples of technique. Companion web site: Eric Meyer on CSS.