[WEB4LIB] RE: Do we want a .lib or .library domain?

[Jenny Levine]

On Wed, 20 Dec 2000, Garwood, Steve wrote:
> To be quite honest I'd like to see us all work together on a
> www.library.com, which of course would be accesible via library.org .net
> .lib .info, etc.

	With a way to customize it to my state, region, etc., right?  I may not 
care about California's election process versus my home state's (Florida being 
the exception, of course!).
 
> I kind of think that people don't really care that libraries are online.
> Yahoo is easier and to be quite honest it can often be a pain in the butt to
> find your local libraries website (if it has one).

	If your people don't care that your library is online, then you 
don't have a good online presence and you certainly haven't filled it 
with things that are useful to them.  Online catalogs are a wonderful 
example of people caring, and I can tell you from my experience with the 
Virtual Illinois Catalog (VIC) that a lot of people *do* care and quite 
deeply.  They really, really, really appreciate this service because no 
one else offers it, including Amazon.  Granted it has a long way to go to 
truly serve people's needs, but already it's having an impact and a lot 
of everyday folks care enough to send us comments of appreciation.  
When's the last time you thanked Amazon?
	Finding the Web site is a separate issue from caring about your 
online services.  If my library's site was located at the URL amazon.com 
I'd sure remember it much better, but it's not my fault it's gone and 
they have a big marketing budget to publicize it.  For VIC, we did the 
"right" thing and registered it at http://www.vic.lib.il.us/, which no 
one is going to remember.  We're trying to implement several new URLs 
such as  http://www.findvic.org/, which should help, but I'll never be able to 
publicize it the way Amazon could.  Although, to be fair, can you tell me 
the little memory rhyme Amazon is using in their current holiday ads?  
The one that uses the first letter of each of their store names?  I'll 
remember the VIC URL before that crazy ditty, so it's always good to 
remember that sometimes they aren't all that great at marketing either.

> I'd rather see a site that can "compete" with the Yahoo's out there. We are
> the info "gods", why do we have the marketing of the Edsel?

	I'd advocate that the Librarians' Index to the Internet comes 
pretty close.  They just need a national marketing push (ALA?).  You know 
the annual competition between search engines to find relevant hits?  We 
need a librarian searching LII to prove our superiority!  We have 
the marketing of the Edsel because our budgets haven't gotten much better 
in this area than they were when the Edsel was introduced.  While I like 
a lot of Steve's ideas about competing with Amazon and why we're better 
than they are, I think we're already doing some of this stuff.  We just 
need to tell people about it more effectively.  Who's with me to design a 
librarian sock puppet?!  Personally, I think the Librarian Avenger has 
great potential since Xena is waning....

----------------------------------------------------------------
Jenny Levine                                    125 Tower Drive
Internet Development Specialist                 Burr Ridge, IL 60521
Suburban Library System                         +1 (630) 734 5141
http://www.sls.lib.il.us/                       levinej at sls.lib.il.us


> From: Peter Murray [mailto:PMurray at law.uconn.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 1:16 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Do we want a .lib or .library domain?
> 
> 
> --On Wednesday, December 20, 2000 4:36 AM -0800 tdowling 
> <tdowling at ohiolink.edu> wrote:
> > Did libraries stop being information services without anyone telling
> > me?    I'm happy with .info.
> 
> True, but a library-specific TLD would raise the visibility of 
> libraries on the net, and that can't do anything but help us.
> 
> At least until there are a gazillion TLDs...
> 
> 
> Peter
> --
> Peter Murray, Computer Services Librarian              W: 860-570-5233
> University of Connecticut Law School             Hartford, Connecticut
>