Primary speaker:
Bilal Khalid, Directory, Digital Library Applications, Library ITS
Secondary speakers:
Lillian Hogendoorn, Web Project Manager and Content Strategy Librarian, Library ITS
Andy Foster, Senior Software Engineer, Library ITS
Description:
Many universities face sprawling, decentralized web ecosystems built over decades — multiple CMS platforms, inconsistent branding, fragmented content and siloed governance.
At the University of Toronto Libraries, this challenge was particularly complex. More than 20 library and departmental websites operated independently, each with its own workflows, designs and technologies. To address this sprawl, we undertook a multi‑year initiative to consolidate this landscape into a single, modern, accessible and sustainable web platform.
This panel presentation shares our experience from three complementary perspectives:
- Content Strategy and Governance: Focusing on the people side of digital transformation, this perspective covers the development of governance models, content standards, training programs and change‑management practices needed to bring dozens of independent content owners onto a shared platform.
- Systems and Infrastructure: An overview of the technical foundations required to support consolidation at scale, including hosting architecture, API integrations, identity management and the operational realities of maintaining a mission‑critical web platform.
- Architecture and Development Pipeline: A look at how we implemented a headless CMS using Drupal and Next.js, built a reusable design system and established a streamlined design‑to‑development workflow that supports rapid iteration while maintaining performance and accessibility.
