Tom Keays Portfolio

I've been involved with web work almost from its beginning. In 1994, I was a founding member of the Syracuse Library Web Group. Although not a graphic designer, I have a good sense of what constitutes a well-designed website. If there are more than a handful of pages, it is paramount to have a logical and consistent navigation system that not only helps you get around the pages in a web site, but which also allows you to see where you are in the structure of the larger site. Some sort of content management system is helpful if there are many pages to serve out, but lacking that, style sheets and page templates make it possible to keep on top of both the content and presentation. I don't strictly eschew table layout, but I am moving away from it. High on my list of reasons for this is awareness of ADA issues.

I have developed a number of web pages backed by MySQL databases and fronted with PHP. A list of some projects I have put together follows and includes both library-related and personal interest databases. I do web content management design and consulting. Contact me if you would like me work on your project.

Chemistry E-Resources

Chemistry E-Journals
Searchable database of chemistry journals available full-text from publishers via the web. This is the larger of the two databases and is the version I'm serving out to the chemistry faculty at SU. Eventually, this version will go away and be replaced by "Mach II" when it is fully populated.

Blogs

Over the past three years, I have become a fan of web logs as a way to deliver content. One of the first things I did on setting up camp on this web site in September 2003 was to install Movable Type and start a blog. I'm not trying to be a teacher or a preacher. However, the ease with which new content can be developed is inspiring. In the Library world, their utility is unquestionable. [I don't think I had much to do with it, but I'm happy that the Syracuse University recently began using Movable Type to deliver its own news content.]

Personal Interest Databases

Morris Dancing FAQs
This is a category-based directory of morris-related web sites that supports the Morris Dancing Discussion Listserv. It replaces a static site that had become impossibly unwieldy to maintain.

I also maintain several team directories as PHP/MySQL databases, but for privacy purposes, I am not providing access to these here.

Other Web Pages

Morris Dancing Discussion List
I have been this list owner for the Morris Dancing Discussion List (MDDL) since 1988 and besides the FAQ database previously mentioned, maintain the web pages for that list. Top-ranked listing on the open directory project.

Bassett Street Hounds
Newly redesigned and with its own domain name in time for its twentieth anniversary, these are pages for the Syracuse morris team that I helped found in 1985. Top-ranked listing on the open directory project.

Central New York Friends of Folk Music (FOF-CNY)
Since 1996, I have maintained the listserv-related pages for the Central New York Friends of Folk Music, a grassroots music organization which has a mission to bolster the market for traditional and contemporary folk music in the Utica-to-Rochester, Watertown-to-Binghamton sector; encouraging venues, presenting and publicizing shows, and agitating in the media.

Resume

Resume (March 2004)

Publications

Thomas Keays. Searching online database services over the Internet.
Online. 17(1):29-33 (January 1993)
Thomas Keays. Telnet connections to online database services. (sidebar)
Online. 17(1):32-33 (January 1993)
Thomas Keays. The library of the future (book review).
Library Software Review. 9(3):186-187 (May/June 1990)