[WEB4LIB] RE: academic web administration

[Craighton Hippenhammer]

There are two problems here. First, which is my pet peeve, are institution web pages that have no obvious link to the library.  This very much affects access to the library.  The second, library addresses that are uncessarily long, is not as bad as the first but still makes it difficult to remember the library URL.  We used to be http://www.olivet.edu/Departments/Library (yes, capital D and L) and now we are http://library.olivet.edu   How much nicer and easier to get right, correct?  I'm making a little progress on the other issue: the institution home page has a direct link; on the intranet home page, we're two clicks away (they want that page small enough to have no scroll bar).

In our case it wasn't administrators making the decision; it was a techie.  Maybe get to know your campus webmaster really, really well?




Craighton Hippenhammer
Information Technology Librarian
Olivet Nazarene University
chhammer at olivet.edu

>>> Jennifer Heise <jahb at lehigh.edu> 05/14/01 01:16PM >>>
> You need to ask if this battle is really worth fighting.  What difference
> will it make to your users?  Will it be more difficult for your users to
> reach you?

In cases like this, where multiple levels have to be traversed to get to
the library, most times I've seen that it does make it much more
difficult for users to reach you.

One of the things we end up doing at the Help Desk is showing people how
to get to the library page from the main university page.
-- 
/   Jennifer Heise, Helpdesk/Librarian, Lehigh Univ. Information
Resources
\ \ Fairchild-Martindale Library, 8A Packer Ave, Bethlehem PA 18015 
  / Phone (610) 758-3072          Email: jahb at lehigh.edu

"Comment is free, but facts are on expenses." -- Tom Stoppard

>>>>>>>
Is there any professional publication on the importance of the library's web presence.  My main gripe in all of this "splash page" and college banner issue, is that they are forcing the library into being just a normal "department" of the college instead of the entity that it is.  However, I have a heck of time getting administration to understand this - and I have really given up at this point but I did a quick search on the ALA website and other professional sites but have not yet found anything on the advocacy of the library's web presence.  Anyone know of something that might be useful?  Thanks.



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