A Major Website Redesign

Select the images above to see past versions of the MCHS website.

If you’ve visited the Morrison County Historical Society’s website in the past year and have paid a call in the past few days, you’ll see that we have changed the site significantly.

The most obvious change is the visual presentation. We’re using a newer WordPress theme that is responsive to different devices, so the display works on mobile phones, tablets, and regular computers. With all the wonderful visual content we have in our collections, we’ve been making a concerted effort to provide more of it online in the past year or so, especially with our online exhibits. (Our curator, Ann Marie, has a new online exhibit in the works that should be up soon.) The home page of our website (called a Presentation Page) is also evidence of our shift to provide more visual content online.

What may not be as obvious about this website redesign is the structural changes that have been made. When I originally set the site up in 2009 (So long ago! But not really that long ago.), I installed WordPress twice, once for the main portion of the site, and once for the History section. It seemed sensible at the time because we had a lot of content for both portions of the site. I followed the same model in creating the Exhibits site this past year, installing WordPress yet again to create a site specifically for exhibits, giving the site its own look. With our “What’s It Like?” project on its own website, that meant dealing with four installations of WordPress. Needless to say, it was all getting a bit unwieldy.

There were a number of links in the header of the main page that I was able to nest into other links (for example, Online Resources is now under Research, and Tours is now under About). I then imported the History section into the main website and did the same with Exhibits, so you’ll find both of those in the menu bar in the header. Most of these are drop-down menus, which you’ll see if you hover over them. You can also click “About” or “History” or any other main menu topic and you’ll get an overview of everything else under that particular heading. Be sure to do this because we’ve tucked some PDF documents on  these pages that won’t show up in the drop-down menus.

Because some web pages got new URLs during the import process, you may find that an article you bookmarked gives you an error message or redirects you to the main page. Use the search box at the top of the page to locate it again. If you have trouble finding it or discover broken links or missing pictures in our new website, please let us know by calling 320-632-4007 or emailing contactstaff@morrisoncountyhistory.org. I’ve combed through every main page on the site a couple of times, but can’t guarantee that I found every glitch.

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