outsourcing pros & cons

[Sarah Crary Gregory]

Greetings -

I've searched the list archives, but haven't found precisely what I'm
looking for. I've been charged with presenting an analysis of our 
institution's web usage and to propose a "web strategy" - for
budgetary and other reasons, there's strong support for outsourcing
the work rather than doing it in-house (we currently have *no* web
staff - it's a free-for-all with backfill mostly handled by me; the
bulk of our static content was created by an outsourcing firm two+
years ago).

I need anecdotal experiences with/perspectives on outsourcing. Who's
doing it? Does it work? How do you (the institutions) handle routine
maintenance needs? Why outsource instead of going in-house? What
problems have you encountered?

And for those who *do* go in-house, what's a rough salary range for 
your webmaster (not sysadmin; we've got those aplenty - just WWW -
mostly HTML, some CGI and design)?

PLEASE respond directly to me and not to the list; I'll compile responses
and send them to anyone else interested.

Thanks!

-- sarah

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* Sarah Crary Gregory, Reference Librarian   sgregory at lclark.edu*
~ Boley Law Library, Northwestern School of Law                 ~ 
*   of Lewis & Clark College                                    *
~ Portland, OR  97219                        503.768.6740       ~
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