Design Background
Beginnings
I first became interested in web design in the early 1990's. While working as Catalog Coordinator for the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC), I became involved in helping to design our first website. Initially, my involvement centered on the interface for the online curriculum catalog, but I became fascinated with the whole concept of web site creation and as I began cataloging internet resources for our catalog, I also started examining the source code and learning all that I could on my own.
In 1998 I began my formal training by taking a series of workshops through Kent State University's School of Library and Information Science/Continuing Education program. Through these workshops, I learned the basics of HTML coding, including the creation of tables and forms, use of graphics, and design principles. I immediately fell in love with HTML!
The Biology Project's Web Design Workshop
The next year, 1999, offered a unique opportunity for myself and my friend Lynda Titterington. Lynda is an adjunct instructor at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, OH, where she teaches a class in Human Pathophysiology. As part of her dissertation work at Ohio State University, she wanted to explore the use of online case studies for her class. In her research she discovered that The Biology Project at the University of Arizona held an annual workshop to help people development instructional websites in various topics in biology. Lynda and I talked about this and finally applied for the workshop. We were so thrilled when we were awarded a fellowship to attend! This week-long intensive training was one of the best professional development experiences I have ever had. Incredible instructors worked with us on basic design, graphics, scripting, as well as providing a thorough overview of many instructional design concepts.
International Webmasters Association/HTML Writers Guild eClasses
My "career" in web design now firmly in place, I continued to develop my skills through reading, working with the web designers at ENC, and membership in The HTML Writer's Guild (HWG). Now merged with the International Webmasters Association (IWA), IWA/HWG offers an amazing series of online courses in web topics from HTML coding through programming with PERL and JavaScript. I've taken over 10 of IWA/HWG workshops and have learned so much! [See the professional development section of my C.V. for a listing of the courses I've taken.] I earned my certificate in Web Technologies in August 2003.
My recent love for XHTML coding comes from Chimène Long, who teaches Introduction to XHTML and Intermediate XHTML. She has taught me so much about the importance of well-formed and valid code. Another instructor, Cheryl Iverson, has helped me develop my design skills. Cheryl teaches Introduction to Web Design and Web Design Workshop, two classes which really focus on the whole design process from initial client interview and writing site specifications to the final design and testing process. Cheryl and Chimène are both great instructors and I'm very grateful to them for sharing their expertise and providing such great feedback!
Current Career
In my current position at the University of Akron, I still do some web design work even though I'm "officially" a cataloger! I have served on the University Libraries (UL) Web Team, serving as webmaster for the UL website from Aug. 2002-Sept. 2003. With my colleague Christine Rigda, I developed a website for the Cataloging Department and continue to maintain that site. Currently (June 2009), I serve as Chair of the University Libraries Content Author Group, a task force that makes recommendations to the Web Team and develops the content portion of the web site, and am an ad hoc member of the University Libraries Web Team specializing in CSS issues. I also volunteered my services to the Academic Librarians Association of Ohio (ALAO), redesigning and coding the ALAO Newsletter pages, developing pages for two Interest Groups (Technical Services and Distance Learning), and finally serving as co-webmaster for the site. I created a new logo and redesigned the site in 2005/2006. I continued as webmaster for Lynda's Human Pathophysiology site and have developed my own website. See Site Design Experience for links to sites I've worked on.
I haven't done as much web design work as I would have liked over the last year or so, as other projects at work and health concerns filled my time, but I hope to work more closely in the field in future months.
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