What is a Portal? Customized content development?

What is a Portal?

A portal is simply a custom Web interface or page that would reside on the eGranary to guide users to specific resources within the eGranary based on a client's request. A portal can be organized in any way to be the most useful to your users. They can be simple or very detailed. Examples of portals currently in development are:

• the Global Disability Rights Library, which is organized to point out resources such as information on independent living, advocacy, education, transportation, public policy, employment, vocational rehabilitation, and other topics. As part of this project, we're highlighting existing resources and requesting new resources that our librarians have found relevant.
• the Zambia Medical Portal. This is a medical portal designed to point out a broad range of resources. It is organized by such fields as Physiotherapy, Anatomy and Physiology, Immunology, Community-Based Education, Journals and Medical Reference Reference Materials, Genetics, etc.
• the Ponseti Club Foot Portal. This is a medical portal that is more specialized. First, it has two areas for two audiences: healthcare providers and parents. For healthcare providers, it highlights resources to educate about clubfoot and it's treatment's. For parents, it highlights similar resources, but they're more specific to a parent's needs, such as "Who treats club foot?", "How do I know it's club foot?", "Is my child too old to receive treatment?" as well as highlighting both Ponseti treatment and non-Ponseti treatment options and more.
• the Children's Literature Portal. This is a simple portal that highlights and organizes the children's literature selections already available in the eGranary.
• the Indian National Curriculum Portal. This is a prototype portal, so it is currently not fully developed, but one area that is developed is arranged by the Indian National Curriculum framework for an eighth grade science course.
• the Spanish Language Portal and the Arabic Language Portal. These are also prototype portals. Currently they only highlight materials available in Spanish or Arabic already within the eGranary. In the future, however, we hope to develop a multilingual eGranary. This includes highlighting resources available in existing languages, having the eGranary interface, catalog, etc. available in other languages, gathering more resources available in the target language(s) particularly for sites we already have permission for and translation tools for translating resources not available in other languages.

What is Customized Content Development?

Portal development may or may not include customized content development. In the examples above, the Children's Literature Portal only highlights existing resources, but in the Global Disability Rights Library highlights potential resources, which our librarians then seek permission to add to the eGranary Digital Library. Seeking more resources than the eGranary already contains about a topic is customized content development. It involves identifying useful resources and requesting permission for them. Once (and if) we get permission to include the desired resource(s) in the eGranary, they are then copied and added to the catalog.