W3Schools HTML Tutorial / W3Schools.com
HTML is the markup language used to describe websites. Before reading this, I knew enough about HTML to recognize it when I see it & to do some basic edits (change fonts/sizes, make lists, bold, etc) to an existing website. This site was very easy to follow - easier to follow than the many manuals & seminars I've read/attended on building websites. I especially liked how it gave space for real-time practice.
HTML Cheat sheet / Webmonkey
I've bookmarked this page for future reference. It'll be very handy for any web editing projects because although HTML is a good thing to be familiar with, no one is going to remember all the correct tags.
W3Schools CSS Tutorial / W3Schools.com
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allows you to apply styles to many web pages at once, saving a huge amount of time and effort. (I'm a little more familiar with this because of a web project at work [which ate my life] last year.) CSS is perfect for large-scale projects, like creating a new website. Once you've decided the basic format & the elements you'll need for each of the pages on the site (i.e. background colors, fonts, sizes, etc.), you can save those elements in a .css file & use it to style your pages.
Beyond HTML / Goans & Leach
This article discusses one library's adoption of a content management system to manage their web guides. CMS can make web sites easier to manage and edit because prior knowledge of HTML is not necessary. For this particular library,CMS also allowed them to be more creative in tagging and customizing information to better meet the needs of their users. It was interesting to see that when the authors surveyed librarians and liaisons in their use of CMS, most respondents indicated that the "ease of use" was the deciding factor in choosing CMS.
I think what you note about 'ease of use' criteria makes a lot of sense (It's probably what I'd say if surveyed too). There's too much going on and needing to get done to make any other choice, seems to me.
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