[WEB4LIB] RE: Library Home Pages : historical view?

[Ward Price]

At 12:24 PM 05/13/1999 -0700, Hal P. Kirkwood wrote:
>Question to all the many libraries that have mentioned they are in the 
>middle of a Web redesign...
>Are you keeping a copy or snapshots, etc of the old design for posterity's 
>sake?  So that you can look back and see how your site has developed and 
>changed?
>
I keep a hard copy of all the library Web pages.  Every time I update a
page, I print another copy.  That also includes our old site, before we
redesigned it last year.  Right now I'm approaching half a file drawer of
Web page printouts.  

Why?  We tell our students that Web sites change, and even though they may
cite a page perfectly in their papers (that's another problem), the page
may not be there next month, or tomorrow.  A hard copy is proof of the
information they found and where they found it.  I'm sure no one cites our
pages, but I figured it was a good idea for us to keep copies of our site,
too.  (So far, the only time I've needed a copies of old pages is to show
when I changed a page or linked to a site that someone wanted.)

Ward Price


C. Ward Price    wprice at panam.edu
 Instruction/Reference/Web Librarian
  University of Texas-Pan American
         Edinburg, Texas  78539
        http://www.lib.panam.edu/