Web maintenance by committee?

[Peter C. Gorman]

Beth Dierauer writes:

>We are wondering how other libraries handle workflow and
>maintenance issues in similar team settings.

Here at UW, we have several tiers to our web structure: the "Electronic
Library" (EL) (http://www.library.wisc.edu/), which is the umbrella
structure and menuing system for all of our networked electronic resources
and information, individual libraries' web sites, and specific resources
like subject guides, bibliographies, and texts.

Server access:
The El's web server houses all of the EL web resources and offers space and
maintenance for any campus library, though some libraries use other servers
on campus. Libraries and resource authors are responsible for the content
of their sites whether they're housed on the EL server or not. Our server
maintains test, production, and backout spaces for library sites, which
libraries maintain via FTP submission and web forms to move things from
test to production. The EL web pages are maintained by staff here in
Automation (i.e., me). The server itself uses mirrored drives, and we
maintain a live backup server that we can switch to at the speed of a DNS
change.

Page design:
The Electronic Library web pages are designed by a Naming & Menuing working
group which meets twice a month to discuss organization, navigation, and
wording. The discussions are often, um, "frank and honest"! This group's
recommendations are reviewed by our Electronic Library Access Committee.
Several sections of the EL web (e.g. Help pages) are written and maintained
by other committees or individuals but follow the overall EL structure and
design. The EL menuing pages are written by Automation staff, but our
resource lists are generated by a database-like application. Resource and
Library web authors are free to design their pages as they see fit, but we
have a set of (voluntary) guidelines for them to follow, such as including
a link from their pages to the EL, following HTML DTDs, etc.
(http://www.library.wisc.edu/help/tech/Web_standards.html)

Hope this helps,

PG
_______________________________
Peter C. Gorman
University of Wisconsin
General Library System
Automation Services
pcgorman at facstaff.wisc.edu
(608) 265-5291