Drupal and Evanced: A Money-Saving Combination

Increasingly we’re seeing emails that begin with “We’re a Drupal shop and want to use Evanced products too…” Here at Evanced we’re excited by the potential of Drupal and what libraries are doing with it.

The Worthington Libraries (Ohio) has integrated their Events calendar with their website which uses Drupal as its content management system. You can view their calendar at http://www.worthingtonlibraries.org/calendar. What you’ll see might surprise you. The front end is powered by Drupal, but the back end is Evanced Solutions’ Events product and uses all of the filtering, registration, and management features available.

For Kara Reuter, Digital Library Manager at Worthington Libraries, the choice to use both Drupal and Events was an easy one. “We chose Drupal because it’s a really powerful content management system and can be extended in almost any way you can imagine. Lots of other libraries are using Drupal these days, so there’s a good community we can turn to for ideas and support.”

Worthington Libraries wanted to keep the look and feel of their website, while taking advantage of the functionality Events has to offer. As Ms. Reuter explained, “We chose Events because every time we looked at a library’s online calendar that offered all the features we wanted, it was Events. And the ability to integrate Evanced Solutions’ Room Reservation [software] is essential for our library.”

The development team at Evanced is excited by the possibilities Drupal offers and is working closely with the Worthington Libraries. For Kara Reuter, this collaboration made the switch to a Drupal-driven website even easier. “We love that Evanced has been so open to our ideas and supportive of our efforts to create our Drupal+Events mashup.”

Worthington staff and patrons have given positive feedback on the calendar, which created a look and feel that was constant across both the website and calendar. “Our staff and patrons have definitely commented on the calendar. They’ve given us positive feedback about the pull down menus that allow you to specify just what kind of event you’re looking for,” she explained. “What I love is that the calendar is perfectly integrated in to our Web site in terms of look and feel – I think visual consistency is really important in terms of user experience. Plus, the power of Drupal allows us to create the “Today at the Library” block on the homepage – it’s completely dynamic and as the day progresses the events drop off so that you’re only seeing what’s coming up. We can also pull in event lists on other pages, such as on our Book sale page: http://www.worthingtonlibraries.org/visit/services/booksales (see right sidebar).”

Are you an Events customer that is using Drupal or considering Drupal? Worthington Libraries is seeking partner libraries to help them to prepare their Evanced Events Importer module for release at drupal.org. To learn more contact Kara Reuter at Worthington Libraries, kreuter@worthingtonlibraries.org.