[WEB4LIB] Re: managing academic library websites

[Bollinger,Stephen]

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to share some thoughts "from the other side" that might help you with this issue.  In the past I worked as a consultant on projects for several corporations that were centralizing their websites.

As pointed out in Kyle Felker's post, *everybody* on your campus is probably resisting centralization.  All of them will no doubt use the argument that they are special or different.  The people in charge will have heard this over and over and over to the point where it means nothing to them.

If you have any hope of differentiating yourself, you must _document_ why you are different, how you are special, and why they should care.  Asides from Kyle's excellent suggestions, and Sarah Hood's excellent suggestion of focusing on your databases as one example, you can also highlight your online catalog.

You need to establish that you are the experts on integrating database and library catalog content on your website and that it is too expensive or cumbersome or repetitive for others to do it (when in doubt, focus on expensive).  Perhaps you have authentication or proxying issues that are too specialized or involve third-party vendors that will cause problems.

Should you lose your fight (and you should anticipate that outcome if you can't justify your case to yourself) then you at least have a list of requirements that you can hold your new web manager(s) to.

Yours,
-Steve

Stephen Bollinger
Internet Specialist
CAPITAL AREA DISTRICT LIBRARY
401 South Capitol Avenue
Lansing, MI  48901-7919
http://www.cadl.org/