Polanyi Society Web Work

Governance

Mullins

I want very much to move matters related to the Society's web presence toward a posture in which there is shared responsibility for important web-related decisions and the implementation of such decisions.

TAD Mailing List

We presently produce and distribute a digital TAD as described below.

• InDesign used to assemble the issue.
• Camera ready copy goes to the printer.
• We produce the digital TAD simply by exporting pdf modules from InDesign and fitting them into an HTML template.

Take the last issue's template and change the details (e.g., article titles) to produce the new one.

All the template currently is is a table of contents with links to the articles or reviews or forematter in each issue.

• The HTML modules are placed in a folder then upload them to a similarly named folder on the Western server (where all PS web materials presently are) when I have exported them all and reconstructed the template.
• Feb 1, Oct 1, July 1: goal of having the issue available online.

(2) One further thing that has to be done each summer is expanding the indices on the PS web site, that is, adding the articles and reviews from issues in the last academic year. Take a look at the indices. I usually do this update in July. I simply take an existiing index (e.g., TAD authors) and add the names of this year's authors. The coding is simple since I can simply copy the coding used for earlier entries. I often prevail on someone to proof the additions. But all the indices have errors and we need a process that is failsafe for making updates. I am always surprised at how few people understand that there are indices on the PS site and it is not rocket science to find something in the last 30 years of TAD issues. Certainly, there may need to be something else done to the indices other than updating them. But creating an index is a very laborious task. There is also a simple free search engine on the site but it often does not seem to be in working order. You can see a note about it in the code on the homepage. I would like to get it to work reliably.

I have covered above the basic parameters of producing and mailing out the digital TAD plus creating the indices for the TAD archive.  I am sure this system can be improved and made into a system that does not rely so much on me.  If I should drop dead tomorrow, I am not quite sure how the 438 folks on the electronic TAD list would be notified about downloading this new TAD.  I am not quite sure, in fact, how the new digital TAD would get posted.  Thus I have mentioned to some of you that I think a prudent electronic TAD policy for the future would be to post the electronic TAD on some server space that we rent and all have access to and all work on.  Slowly, we should move much of the PS web material to this site. Or at least we should have a back-up copy of materials there or somewhere.  

An alternative to this is teaching members of the committee how to access the server space that I originally arranged for at Western. We don't pay for this so the price is right and I seem to be able to get more space simply by asking. Accessing the Western server where TAD materials reside is, of course, is not rocket science. It is password protected and I simply go in and ftp things into place. Western has been very supportive but I am never quite sure they understand what having a professional society web site on the Western server is all about. I was a faculty member (before retirement), of course, at the time I started working on the PS web site at some point in the nineties. Western certainly cooperated or at least left me alone to do what I thought (with input from others in the PS and from some of the Western technical people) should be done. I rarely ask any questions of Western. I occasionally consult the Western web master to ask her how to do something, and the engineer to ask him what is going on and to fix something on his end. My spouse, of course, is a retired computer science professor and she fields more than a few questions and it is from her that I have have inherited several generations of HTML manuals. But I have been somewhat under the radar at Western and have been careful to remain flying at this level I don't think they had many articulated policies about the web when I started and I do not to ask questions that might lead the Computer Center people to infer that they might need official policies. My motto has been "let sleeping administrators lie."

Phil Mullins

Polanyi Society Website

This includes current business things such as the annual call for papers or the papers themselves in early Nov. before the annual meeting. But it also includes larger posting projects such as the Polanyi Gifford Lectures which it took me 2 or 3 years working with the Duke U Library, preparing and introduction, etc. to get together. There are, of course, many opportunities for expansion of Polanyi web resources and a few projects are already at some stage of development.