The following report was submitted by a recipient of our new CMLE scholarship program.

Submitted by Alex Jarvis

 With the generous support of the CMLE, I was able to attend the DrupalCon conference in San Francisco from April 17-22. Drupal is a free, open source content management system and framework that allows for the rapid development of websites and web services. The conference was an excellent opportunity that will have a direct impact on my work on Great Riverʼs web presence. The sessions were highly informative, giving me insights into new technologies Great River should consider adopting (such as Solr search), as well as optimizations and best practices for the online services we already provide. It also gave me the opportunity to meet with other libraries from across the country and talk with them about innovative ways of implement Drupal-based library products and services. These invaluable interactions have opened up exciting collaboration opportunities; some of the libraries I talked to have worked more extensively with Drupal than Great River has to date, and can help us improve our offerings, while others are still evaluating their options and would like to talk to us about our experience migrating a legacy site.

 Attendance at the conference will also help further Great Riverʼs goal of eventually hosting a Central Minnesota Drupal conference for libraries. At DrupalCon I spoke to several conference organizers who were kind enough to share their invaluable insights and suggestions for organizing a successful Drupal-oriented gathering.

 Overall the conference was a fantastic learning and networking experience, and I would like to thank the CMLE for sponsoring my attendance. I would also recommend Drupal to any library that is considering revamping their online presence. More information about Drupal can be found at www.drupal.org.