Web maintenance by committee?

[Real Rodrigue]

At 22:26 -0000 25/02/97, Beth Dierauer wrote:
>Here at the Library of Michigan, our website is maintained
>by a team, comprised of representatives from each division.
>We do not have any one individual who is "in charge"; i.e.
>no "webmaster," or "website manager."
>
>We are wondering how other libraries handle workflow and
>maintenance issues in similar team settings. How do you
>gather information to be added to the web in  a timely
>fashion? Who is responsible for actually putting content on
>the web? What are procedures for reviewing content? How do
>you maintain a unified "tone" on your web site, if different
>individuals are producing the content?
>
>I have searched the list archives for information on this
>topic, but not found anything relevant.
>
>Please reply to the list.
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>Beth Dierauer                          dierauer at libofmich.lib.mi.us
>Reference Librarian                    517-373-1384
>Library of Michigan, PO Box 30007, 717 W. Allegan, Lansing MI 48909
>-------------------------------------------------------------------


At the Universite du Quebec a Montreal Library, there is a Webmaster
(myself) who acts as a coordinator for a team of webwriters. There is at
least one person (generally a reference librarian) in each of our libraries
(sometimes more than one for the big libraries, such as the main library)
in charge of writing for the web. All the reference librarians (including
those who do not write web pages) have the responsibility of gathering the
information in their own subject areas that will be eventually included in
the thematic web pages. For my part, I am generally responsible for
"general" web pages for the library. Each webwriter is responsible for
updating his pages and making sure that his links are still active.

We have set up a committee which has the task of adopting guidelines for
publishing on the web. This committee (of which I am a member) also has the
responsibility of ensuring that our Web site has a somewhat "unified tone"
(until the formation of this committee, there was a certain anarchy in
developing web pages on our site, especially in the thematic pages, and
unfortunately this anarchy is still visible today).

There are only 3 persons (myself included) who have access to the server to
actually put the files on the server, and I am responsible, as webmaster,
for the integrity of the files and folders structure on the server. As the
library shares a server with other administrative units in the University,
there is a University webmaster who oversees the whole server.


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