[WEB4LIB] Re: managing academic library websites

[Jennifer A. Heise]

>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.
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One of the biggest issues in academic web management is the trend to 
replace an organic website based on the needs of the academic community 
with one that is merely a sales perspectus for the 
marketing/admissions/development folks. In academia, most departments 
resist this.

The marketing folks reply with the mentality that works in Corporate 
web-- put all your good stuff on the intranet, and let us present the 
external face. The academians point out that access to their stuff is 
what makes it possible for other universities to respect 'em.  Libraries 
are even further in this situation because marketing people don't seem 
to have the faintest idea why we would want to have open access to our 
resources and place as few barriers to off campus use as we can. They 
are, of course, in the business of interposing as many shiny marketing 
fliers as possible between the users and the content they actually want, 
lest users find out something controversial about the institution.

If your institution's website is being centralized in order to impose a 
marketing meme, you will need to make the case that not only are your 
pages different from other parts of the institutions', but that they 
have value such that they MUST be easily accessible outside the campus.

-- J. Heise