Hi James
We set up just such a glossary for our museum website. It was originally intended to only apply to the collections area to help people understand any specialist terms our curators and conservators used.
It works by an editor creating an entry in the glossary for a word or phrase with an accompanying definition. The CMS then automatically links this to any occurrence of the word and the user sees the word highlighted and can mouse over for the definition.
In a spirit of adventure we applied it across the site and are now reviewing this. The points we have found so far include:
- different parts of the museum may use different definitions for the same word so who should take priority?
- do we use dictionary definitions in every case or allow editors to draft their own definition for specialist terms?
- having one person moderate words included and their related definitions make managing it easier
- sometimes we really don't want the system to apply a definition to a word. For example, using the word preparation in the context of an event rather than in an art context
Our current thoughts are that it is a very useful tool but it needs controlling. We recommend one person acts as moderator for words used and their linked definitions. We are considering changing the CMS so an editor can apply the system to a word (via a drop down menu of words in the glossary) when creating a page instead of the automatic application at present.
Our website is: http://www.rammuseum.org.uk/
The glossary is http://www.rammuseum.org.uk/Glossary/
Regards
Rick Lawrence
Digital Media Officer
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery
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