[WEB4LIB] Re: Academic Library Web Pages

[Margaret F. Dikel]

At 02:06 PM 3/1/99 -0800, Joe H. Rose wrote:
>Tami-Jo Eckley <eckleyt at mville.edu> wrote:
>
>> I would like to know if any of you are completely in charge of what goes 
>> into your Home Page/Site or if you need to be consistent with the rest of 
>> the college's site.  Do you need to answer to the college's Webmaster or 
>> does the library have autonomy.  I would really appreciate input on this 
>> since we are currently undergoing major change at Manhattanville 
>> College, and at present, we must answer to the College Webmaster.
>
>I hope some of you Academic folks will respond online to this, as this is a 
>question that has just come up as I've started to try to update and improve 
>what is called the "library home page" on our site. 

I wrote to Tami-Jo privately, but since Joe asked...

When I worked at Worcester Polytech (www.wpi.edu), the web committee
for the university came up with a set of guidelines which governed content,
look, and control of information based on who controlled the initial info and
how deep in the web the pages were found.  So course catalogs and other 
official university documents had a high-level of control placed on them, 
including who approved any online changes to the content.   Department pages
had guidelines for look of the front page along with notes of content we
wanted
to see within the pages (lists of faculty and staff among other things),
but beyond
this they were under the control of the individual departments and their
appointed
"webmaster."   Student associations and clubs just needed to have a link
back up
to the university front page.

I think these guidelines allowed for a standard "look and feel" along with
basic
standard content but allowed departments to express their individuality.
However,
I left the university 3 years ago, so a check of their webserver or an
email to
the webmaster or director of the library might reveal something different in
place.

Margaret


Margaret Dikel, MSLIS    
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