Another semester beginning

I'm starting a new semester, and one that is solely concentrated content-wise on web work. I'm taking a class on the Drupal platform, something that I'm seeing more and more often in website design, and a "program" that I felt I should be familiar with given its rising popularity--including as the method of delivery on library websites. I'm really looking forward to this class because it will be another tool in my toolbox and will allow me to develop pages that are clean, attractive, and functional. Drupal is pretty darn cool in that there is so much you can do with it. Every site I've seen that uses it looks and feels completely different while still all starting from the same set of functions and options, a testament to the wide variability in what you can get it to do for you.

It actually pairs quite nicely with the internship I've also managed to get. I'll be doing a virtual internship with the Marin County Free Library (see their website at http://www.marinlibrary.org/) and working with their Electronic Services department. And what is a virtual internship? I hear you ask. Well, it's an internship doing real work from a remote location. I won't be on site and I get to have control of when I do the work (provided I maintain the hours per week required by the internship), which is good since I also work full-time. I'll being doing projects that involve their public and staff websites, both of which run on--you guessed it--Drupal. So I'll be able to (hopefully) apply concepts from class to the real-world scenarios I'll be encountering during the course of my internship. I'm really excited about that because it will give me professional experience and help me continue developing soft skills since I will be coordinating with my internship supervisor, fellow internee, and potentially other MCFL staff.

So, there will be more activity on my blog, as I am required to make weekly posts related to my internship--things I'm doing/seeing/experiencing/learning. So you, dear reader, will read about this as I live it. And hopefully I'll be breaking up the ongoing academic commentary with more recipes, pictures of Jaybird, and my thoughts on issues in the profession.

Until next time...