Your input wanted on ALA program

[Judy Myers]

At the LITA Internet Resources IG program this summer I will be speaking on
making the decision to move beyond HTML. 

I would very much appreciate it if those of you who interested in this
topic would help me decide what to cover by sharing your questions about
it, and telling me what you'd like to see such a program cover.

Please make a mental note of *your* first thoughts at this point before you
read on to see *my* initial thoughts for the presentatation! I know it's
almost impossible to recover those first thoughts!

I'd like to target the presentation to Web devevelopers *and*
administrators. If you're a Web developer it'll outline the things you
might consider telling administration when you propose moving to new
realms. If you're an administrator it will give you some idea of what can
be accomplished beyond HTML and what the journey will take in terms of
resources.

Some of the specific subtopics are:
-- How do I know I've gotten all I can get or should get out of HTML,
before I move on?

-- What sorts of things can I do beyond HTML, and what does it take for
each? (I'd like to structure this part as a list of sorts of things a
library might want to accomplish, such as using a form (for ILL or such),
varying a page depending on user search history, building a page from text
files (for example to maintain the list of subject librarians in *one*
place and plug in the subject librarian for x on whatever pages need it),
or searching a database. For each type of task I'd talk about what it takes
to accomplish it. What other types of tasks should I include?

-- What does it take to accomplish these tasks? Some parts of this are:
giving some real thought to your Web site and what you want to do (it isn't
just ad hoc anymore); knowledge, gained either by giving someone on staff
time to learn  or by hiring someone with necessary knowledge; access to the
server; and development tools. What have I left out here?

Now, please try to recapture those first thoughts you had *before* you read
the description above, and if I didn't include your thoughts exactly, let
me know what you would like to see my presentation cover! I would very much
appreciate your comments. Unless you think your comments would be of
interest to the list, please send them directly to me: jm at uh.edu.

The program will be Saturday, June 27, starting at either 9am or 9:30
(check the final schedule -- I've seen both times listed) until Noon.

Thanks again for your comments.





Judy E. Myers                              jm at uh.edu
Assistant to the Dean of Libraries         713/743-9805 (voice)
University of Houston Libraries            713/743-9811 (fax)
Houston, TX 77204-2091