Maintenance is so booooooooooring -Reply

[Dan Lester]

>>> Andrea Duda <duda at ariz.library.ucsb.edu> 08/14/97
04:05pm >>>
People have suggested several ideas regarding the
maintenance of web pages:
   - pages should include the name of the person responsible
for the page
--------
Yes.  We require this to include a mailto: link, and also an
automatic date last updated.
===========
   - use tools like MOMSpider or CyberSpyder to generate
lists of broken  links
-------------
Absolutely.
============
   - use library assistants or student assistants to mark up
pages
--------------
We don't do that.  If you provide the librarians with actual
WYSIWYG tools (we use Word97, FrontPage97 and 98, and
a couple of others), they'll be able to do all that most need or
want to do with no problems.  The easy tools and NOT
teaching HTML have greatly assisted us in getting people to
produce web pages.  This has been particularly the case with
Intranet pages, where anybody can take a document (most
older stuff needing updating is in WP5.1 to WP6.1) and load
it into Word97, save it as HTML, clean it up a bit if needed,
and then save it onto their "Y drive", which is a consistent
mapping for each person's webspace.  I only need to make
links to "homepages" or higher level pages that I maintain. 
Once a department or individual has a "homepage" they are
in charge of maintaining all of their own content, and I just run
monthly linkchecks.  All pages are active once they link
them, and they maintain them in realtime without having to
worry about FTPing or anything else.  It makes it so simple
that over half the staff is doing so now, for both internal and
external content.  And I'm able to get on with other things
besides doing content for Intranet or Internet pages.
==============
   - use resources like the Scout Report to learn about new
sources
----------------
I tell people abou these and it is up to them to use them or
not.  I occasionally forward potentially useful URLs that I note
here or on other lists to the appropriate people.  In many
ways it is just like collection development activities. 
==========
But there are a few people who say they don't have time to
look at the reports and do anything with them.  What do you
do then? 
---------------
I leave that up to their managers.  Since they are THEIR
pages with THEIR names on them, I don't worry about it.  
===========
 But in some cases, the pages are still basically
abandoned by the people who created them. 
------------------
If some pages seem truly abandoned, I'll ask the appropriate
manager whether it should be removed.  Someday we may
get a "Web Advisory Committee" or something else that may
have power or control.  That could be good or bad.  Until then,
I'll let managers decide what to do about these problems.

dan

  

Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator
Boise State University Library, Boise, Idaho, 83725 USA
voice: 208-385-1235   fax:  208-385-1394
dlester at bsu.idbsu.edu     OR    alileste at idbsu.idbsu.edu
Cyclops' Internet Toolbox:    http://cyclops.idbsu.edu
"How can one fool make another wise?"   Kansas, 1979.