Training

What is a Homepage Highlight?

A highlight is the way to get your initiatives, events, etc. featured on the ALA homepage. Please visit the site at www.ala.org to review the layout of the homepage, and pay attention to the guidelines below as you prepare your highlights.

There will be 4-8 randomly sorted homepage highlights at any given time.

In this example, please note the three visual elements -- 1) the image (ALA members browsing the exhibit hall at conference), 2) the headline (ALA 2009 Midwinter Meeting - Denver, Colorado), and 3) a brief blurb (Meet us in Denver…).

The Web Editorial Board determines what highlights are displayed and their duration.  To assist the Web Editorial Board in their planning, keep them apprised of your unit's important annual milestones by entering information in the Event and Highlight Planning Calendar.

How to Get a New Highlight Posted

• Please submit the following items in a single e-mail to webeditorialboard@ala.org to request a highlight.
• The Web Editorial Board meets on alternating Thursdays, and communicates by e-mail when decisions are required between meetings.
• The person in your unit who has access to the Web Highlights Request Calendar (not to be confused with the Event and Highlight Planning Calendar mentioned above) in Outlook should post the start date in the Calendar and use the location field for the end date.  To gain access to the highlights calendar, contact Louise Gruenberg.

1. Prepare a 467x174 pixel PSD or otherwise lossless image (PNG, BMP etc.) to submit to ITTS, with the important visual information located in the top 60%, since the bottom 40% should have the screened area that the text shows on. ALA must have the legal right to use the image. Do not submit images that we do not have the right to use. Photographic elements are preferred and will look better at this size and with the text imposed over them. (You may wish to plan ahead if you do not have staff available to prepare images for you. Production Services should be able to assist units, for a nominal fee, in creating graphics for highlight items. A PhotoShop template is also available to download and use below.)
2. Provide up to 100 characters of alt text to describe your image (this is read out loud to visitors using screen readers). Highlights without alt text will not be installed.
3. Create a descriptive, concise headline (5-7 words, maximum) for the Title field. If the title is much longer, it will run onto two lines, thus shortening the amount of space available in the text field. ITTS will edit your headline and/or text if it does not fit.
4. Create brief text (about 200 characters (NOT 200 words) for the general content field. These two text fields will display over the bottom part of your image, so please ensure that there is no text in that area of the image.
5. Note that the entire highlight box is a link to your content page, so include the URL to the page you want featured. (Make sure the page is created or updated, as appropriate.)
6. Time sensitive highlights take priority over evergreen highlights. For time-sensitive highlights, include the start and expiration dates with your request. Your start date should reflect the date by which you will have your content page completed or the date your event registration opens; your expiration date is the latest date the highlight will be available. Please note that we will use this information primarily to set the expiration date on your highlight. We may not be able to honor your request to feature a highlight for longer than one week. If your highlight is not time sensitive, let us know that it is evergreen, a term we are using to describe highlights that can be displayed whenever an opening is available. (Note that we cannot guarantee whether your evergreen highlight will be displayed, or the length of time that it will be available.)

Download the Photoshop or PNG templates to create a new HomePage Highlight for Collage

• Layered Photoshop PSD
• 32-bit PNG version (for editors other than Photoshop)

How Homepage Highlights Are Installed

This information explains how the new highlights are setup within Collage. Currently, an ITTS staff person is responsible for loading new highlights into Collage. Send the original PSD file or an otherwise lossless image (not JPEG) to ITTS. Please review the instructions for preparing highlights, above.

The ALA Homepage Highlights are stored in /WebSite/homepage_highlights/ in Collage. Each highlight to be featured on the homepage is a homepage_highlight_pod_doc_type. To add a new highlight to the homepage, add a new homepage_highlight_pod_doc_type document to the /WebSite/homepage_highlights/ folder.

From the Content tab in Collage, go to Deploy Folders. You will see the homepage_highlights folder in the left navigation. To add a new highlight, click the New button in the top navigation. You will be prompted to add a Name and Description. The Name will become the filename of the document and the description can be helpful for searches. Once you have saved the file, change its document type to homepage_highlight_doc_type.

Once you hit OK you will go to the Collage edit window. You have a required Title field, the general content area and an image field (with instructions and a template to create a 467x174px image). Add alt text for the image when it is installed.

To help control when the new highlight will show up on the homepage, use the start and expiration date metadata available within Collage. For example, if you want a highlight pod about a conference to not show up after the conference is complete, be sure to enter to appropriate Expiration Date. This will not remove the piece of content from Collage, but just disable it from appearing to Web site users.

Since the homepage highlights are used within the homepage itself, the SEO Keywords, Description and Title are not necessary and will not be used. If you want to fill them in for internal searches, there is no harm. However, add the expiration date to the asset name in parentheses, so it can be seen at a glance.)

The PREVIEW mode will not show the correct layout for the homepage itself, but it might be helpful to use to review and edit your content. To Preview a new highlight, you will actually want to Preview the homepage itself at the root of /WebSite/ in the Collage project.

Remember to both check-in and deploy your new highlight and the home page to see it live on the site!