[WEB4LIB] RE: academic web administration

[Kevin W. Bishop]

Tami,

We too were able to lobby successfully for a direct link to our libraries 
from the home page by showing that users consistently bemoaned the lack of 
a link from our (external) home page.

You might also look at "peer institutions" to see what they're doing ... I 
hope you find that the majority of them allow users to go directly to your 
library's web site from the college's home page.

Good luck!
-kb


At 11:36 AM 5/14/01 -0700, Garwood, Steve wrote:
>Ok here's my inside advice on this.
>
>I used to be of the administrators of the Rutgers University website and we
>decided early on not to put the library link on the main page, but rather
>put it on most of the secondary pages as a link...why is the link actually
>on the main page now? Because we got too many damn email messages asking how
>to get to the library page.
>
>Ergo, let the powers that be not list you, then make up a bunch of free
>accounts on Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. and send message after message about how to
>get to the library page...I can practically guarantee you a link soon
>thereafter.
>
>Yours in manipulation, :-)
>
>Steve
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jennifer Heise [mailto:jahb at lehigh.edu]
>Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 2:16 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list
>Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: academic web administration
>
>
> > 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

_________________________________________
Kevin W. Bishop, Campus-Wide Info. Sys. Coord.
Libraries and Information Services
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
<bishopk at rpi.edu> | <http://www.rpi.edu/rpinfo/>