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About This Help Site
Purpose and Audience
This help site is intended to help Plinkit Editors get their libraries’ Plinkit Web sites up and running quickly and easily. The Plinkit Editor for a library is the library staff member or volunteer who is responsible for creating and maintaining the content on that library’s Plinkit Web site. Some libraries may have more than one Plinkit Editor.
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Note: Plinkit Editors are not responsible for creating or administering Plinkit sites. These tasks are performed by a state or regional system Plinkit Administrator. |
Plinkit Editors do not have to have prior Web development experience or knowledge of HTML, CSS, or other Web technologies. They should, however, be comfortable using Web browsers (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Firefox) and have some experience using a word processing application.
This help site is designed to be used in conjunction with instructor-led training or as a standalone tutorial and reference.
Assumptions and Exclusions
This help site describes the standard features and structure of the master Plinkit site that is maintained by the Plinkit Collaborative and provided to Plinkit Administrators as a starting point for creating individual Plinkit sites. Your Plinkit Administrator may have added features to or removed features from this default master Plinkit site when he or she created the Plinkit site for your specific library. Your Plinkit Administrator probably also changed the color scheme and other aspects of the look and feel of your library’s Plinkit Web site. As a result, the screen shots in this help site will not match the appearance of your library’s Web site exactly.
Despite the differences in appearance, most of the procedures in this help site should apply to all Plinkit Web sites. If your specific site has additional features that require specialized procedures, your Plinkit Administrator may have documented these in Documentation Specific to Your State or Regional System.
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Note: Many of the pages in the master Plinkit site include examples that are specific to the state of Oregon. In the master site, and in the screen shots in this help site, these examples are annotated with bracketed and italicized text. When your Plinkit Administrator created your library site, he or she probably removed these annotations and either removed or replaced the Oregon-based examples. |
Content and Structure
The help site is divided into the following major sections:
• Welcome to Plinkit — Explains the history and purpose of Plinkit (the Public Library Interface Kit) and describes the contents of this help site. This section also provides an overview of the basic features of the default Plinkit Web site interface. This is a good place to start if you are completely new to Plinkit.
• Getting Started with Plinkit — Provides step-by-step instructions for getting your Plinkit Web site up and running and updating it with information about your library. After your Plinkit site is made available to you, you should complete the procedures described in this section as soon as possible.
• Getting More Familiar with Plinkit — Explains key Plinkit terminology and functionality. This section is conceptual rather than task-oriented in nature, but it will provide you with a good foundation for moving on to the advanced editing and maintenance tasks covered in the next section.
• Expanding and Maintaining Your Plinkit Site — Describes procedures for the most common tasks performed by Plinkit Editors. Reading this section will help you customize your site and expand it beyond the standard content provided by your Plinkit Administrator.
• Frequently Asked Questions — Provides answers to questions that are frequently asked about Plinkit. This is a good place to begin troubleshooting if you encounter problems.
• Using Version 1.4 of the Kupu Editor — Documents the most recent version of Kupu, the default content editing tool provided with Plinkit sites. This appendix will only be relevant to you if your Plinkit Administrator has upgraded your site to version 1.4 of Kupu. Documentation for Kupu 1.3.9 is included in Expanding and Maintaining Your Plinkit Site.
• Documentation Specific to Your State or Regional System — Contains information that is specific to Plinkit sites in your state or regional system. This might include information about additional features, default content, or specialized user roles and permissions. This information has been provided by your Plinkit Administrator.
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Note: Although your library’s Plinkit Web site may have a slightly different structure or look and feel, the examples illustrated in this help site should be similar to what you will see when you first access your new Plinkit site. If you have already received your Plinkit Web site address and login information, we encourage you to follow along in your own live Plinkit site. |
Conventions
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Convention |
Meaning |
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Bold type |
Identifies links, tabs, buttons, fields, Web page titles, and other Plinkit page elements. Bold type is also used for this help site’s section headings and for emphasis. |
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Italic type |
Indicates placeholder or variable text. For example, User Name indicates that you should type in your assigned user name, not the words “User Name”. |
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Courier font |
Indicates text or characters to be entered into a field. If the text is in italics, you should substitute your own text or values. If the text is not in italics, enter the exact characters provided in the procedure. |
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Thick, rounded rectangle outlines in screen shots |
Highlight areas of the Plinkit interface that are discussed specifically in the accompanying text. (If you are viewing a color printout, the outlines are dark blue in color.) |
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Circled numbers in screen shots |
Correspond to features that are described in a numbered list in the text. (If you are viewing a color printout, the circled numbers are dark blue in color.) |
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Indicates a Tip, a useful hint that will help you use Plinkit, or this help site, more effectively or efficiently. |
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Indicates a Note, a particularly important piece of information about a feature or procedure. |
