Any staff member within the College Library system is able to submit a news item about library services, resources, exhibits, events, special notices -- whatever might interest the Library's clients.

When you submit a news item, it will first be sent to the currently designated editors. As of February, 2008, the primary editor is Mary LaMarca, Library Communications & Web Managment, with Heather Gere, Access Services, as the backup editor. The editor will review the submitted news item, consult with submitter or interested parties as needed, validate the news section, validate the activation and expiration dates, and specify how the item is to be displayed on the Library home page. Publishing the item to the Library home page also posts a message to the Blitzmail Bulletin called "Library Announcements".

NOTE: as of February 2008, there is a new campus-wide system for communications called the "Dartmouth Daily Update" (d2d). Our Library news system and the college news system are not connected at this time. So if you would like your item to be sent via email to faculty and/or staff and/or students, you will also need to post your item on the d2d system as well. Submit news items for d2d at http://d2d.dartmouth.edu/. Contact Mary LaMarca if you have any questions.

• Click here to submit a News Item

Click on the "New Item" button. You are asked to fill in the following fields.

• Title: Enter the title of your news item. This will appear as the title on any corresponding news pages and possibly as a news item on the home page.

• Primary News Section: If appropriate, choose one of the defined news sections, such as: New Digital Resource, New Service or New Exhibit. If none of these sections are appropriate, then choose "None". If you think we should have another category, contact Mary LaMarca.

• Prefix Titles with Primary News Section?: If you have chosen a news section, and then check this box, the home page will then display the selected news section before the news title. For example, if "Dartmouth College Photographs" is a new digital resource, and you have checked this box, then the title will appear on the home page as:
  
  
  New Digital Resource: Dartmouth College Photographs
  
  
  If you don't check the box, the resource will appear as:
  
  
  Dartmouth College Photographs

• By Line: You can add a 'by-line' or an explanatory sentence to include in the title. For example, if the database "Dartmouth College Photographs" includes over 30,000 photos, you can set the "By Line" to "Includes over 30,000 photos!", then the title would appear as:
  
  
  Dartmouth College Photographs
  Includes over 30,000 photos!

• Description: This is the text which appears on the news web page. Please remember to include the URL for the resource in the description. You can just type in plain text, and check the box titled "Convert Description to HTML?" This will automatically insert the appropriate HTML tags for you. Or if you want to do the HTML mark-up yourself, you can.

• Activation Date: Enter the date you would like the news announcement to be released. You can submit a news item in advance. Please enter the date in the form YYYYMMDD or type in the word 'today'

• Expiration Date: If this news item is tied to a specific date, expire the news item one day after that date. Otherwise, you may want to leave the news announcement up for the semester, or for "two weeks".

• Comments: Enter any explanatory material you think the editor may need to make a decision about the posting of the news item. For example, you may think that the news item pertains to more then one section. For example, the contributor may write: "This is a new resource AND a new service. I categorized it as a new service, though I'm not quite sure this is where it should be." You may also want to suggest something to the editor. The editor will read this material during posting of the news item.