[WEB4LIB] Re: Staff intranet for small libraries

[Richard L. Goerwitz III]

"GraceAnne A. DeCandido" wrote:

> > My library's web technical group is beginning discussions on
> > the feasibility and design of a staff intranet.

I've worked in several environments where one or another style of
"intranet" was used (e.g., closed; partially open).

These sorts of sites tend to get colonized, then abandoned (as a
former co-worker of mine used to say).

Typical problems include:

  1) website isn't integrated into people's workflow

  2) tools for updating the site aren't easy to use and aren't
     geared for producing similarly styled pages across a broad
     range of users and operating systems/browsers/tools

  3) access to the site is either over-controlled (so only a few
     people can actually post) or under-controlled (so there are
     serious security holes - and mistakes or accidental deletions
     by a naive staffer can trash some or all of the site)

  4) content is out of date, so people stop bothering to look
     at the site

  5) discussion groups peter out and either grow stagnant (or get
     dominated by a few vocal people without much to offer)

There are ways to help alleviate all of these problems.  E.g.,
for (5) you can have someone regularly monitor discussion groups
and clear out old/unwanted/stupid material and archive it.  For
(4) you can use a combination of expiration times and email noti-
fication and a reasonable distribution of responsiblity for var-
ious parts of the site (so that no one person gets overburdened).
For (3) you just need a sensible staging mechanism with a secure
system for uploading and/or updating material (either that or a
very good backup system - which for an intranet is a very reason-
able alternative).

For (2) it's going to be critical that you agree on a standard
set of content production tools and a compatible site design.
Don't let the HTML geeks come up with a complex, framed site
that uses multiple server-side includes, for example, and then
let the actual content producers try to deal with integrating
their web pages into that scheme!

For (1) you need decent training, a helpful support staff, and
a sense that the web can and should take over for what is often
done with paper memos, notices, intra-office mail, etc.

By the way, I've found that a private NNTP (news) server is a
great way to handle online discussions.  Netscape and IE both
have NNTP clients built right in (that work).  And NNTP is a
well-worn and tested technology with lots of free server soft-
ware to work with.  I've found that it's particularly good for
internal documentation and notices, because you don't have to
know the first thing about HTML to use it.  And right out of
the box you get threading, searchability, and sortability.

-- 

Richard Goerwitz                               richard at Goerwitz.COM
tel: 401 438 8978