The Barnard website is getting a makeover, but it seems like it’s going to take a while. On Thursday, Barnard students received an email from Scott DiPerna, Director of Electronic Communications (?!), announcing the plan for an overhaul of Barnard.edu and introducing a Barnard Website blog that will keep whoever’s actually interested up-to-date about the site’s progress.

The blog describes the redesign as an element of Barnard’s “new visual identity,” and notes that the current “lack of consistency” on the site “has not gone unnoticed.” The picture to your right shows some of the “changing faces” of the Barnard site. One Bwogger noted that the Barnard administration seems only too eager to collect feedback on the new site rather than, ya know, the mandatory meal plan. Full email after the jump.

It gives us great pleasure to officially announce that the College is moving forward with a project to redesign, reorganize, and redevelop the Barnard website. And as a critical piece of that project, we are also pleased to announce that, with the help of an advisory committee comprised of faculty and staff from across the College, we have selected Palantir.net to redevelop our website and implement a content management system (CMS). For those of you unfamiliar with CMS software, rest assured that this is a major advancement for our website that will enable far greater functionality and ease of management for everyone.

As this process moves forward, it is our wish not only to keep you well apprised of the developments of the project, but to encourage the Barnard community to offer insight and feed back as well. For this reason, we have established a Barnard Website blog (http://barnardwebsite.wordpress.com).

I invite you to visit the blog today and in the future, as we will use this site to announce updates on the project, answer questions, and collect feedback. Currently on the blog, you will find more information about this project, content management systems in general, our advisory committee, and why we selected Palantir.net to help us redevelop our website. My hope is to update the blog weekly.

Finally, we want to be clear: this project is a massive and complex undertaking that will require participation from nearly every part of the College, and it’s going to take time to do it properly. This is not meant to dampen any enthusiasm for this exciting news, but to ask that you please be patient just a little while longer as we (finally!) undertake this important work.

On behalf of Communications and BCIT, we thank you in advance for your cooperation and look forward to working with you to make a better Barnard website.

Sincerely,
Scott DiPerna
Director, Electronic Communications

Carol Katzman
VP for Information Technology