[WEB4LIB] RE: Library web site relationship with parent institution site

[stoberg.2753667 at bloglines.com]

I was amazed to read a posting like this that I could have written, verbatim,
to describe my own experience at my university (Taylor University, a small
liberal arts university in the Midwest of the U.S.).

Our institution recently
decided to implement a commercial CMS/portal environment.  This is a big deal
because it took a huge amount of money and a very significant investment of
human resources to put into place, and the task is far from done.  Taylor
University is not a wealthy institution, in fact the opposite is true.  So
the stakes are high.  The main driving force behind this decision was the
view (which I shared) that Taylor's public web presence was woefully inadequate
and badly represented the university at a time when it was struggling to continue
to attract top level students.  Competing schools "looked" better and more
professional and offered more of a virtual view that reflected their culture
and environment.  Administration felt it was so important to improve this
situation that they redirected funds to solve it.

When I arrived almost
three years ago, and part of my responsibility was to maintain the websites
for Taylor's libraries, I rejected the existing look and feel of the broader
institution's web presence in favor of something in-house in the library.
 I am fortunate to have three excellent student web developers, one of whom
in particular basically wrote our own CMS environment which we've successfully
used for over two years now.  The look and feel were radically different than
the broader institutional web presence and frankly, that stirred controversy
and negativity, but I felt and my director also, that the library must be
able to "do its own thing" because the services and so forth that we provide
are unique.  If it had been up to those in charge of the university website
as a whole, we would never have been able to have the flexibility to achieve
the goal of serving our users in the way we felt was best.

More recently,
after more than a year of working on and planning for a new external web presence
for the university utilizing the commercial CMS platform, a new external web
presence was unveiled earlier this year.  It is a huge improvement in terms
of style and look and feel.  The library was not included in plans to integrate
into the CMS in its initial phase of implementation and frankly, upon reflection,
I think that was a good thing.  In fact, I now have no desire or intention
of having to conform into the CMS platform precisely because I know that my
hands will effectively be tied by central administration.  In fact, exactly
the same thing described by the original posting happened to me, i.e. the
university webmaster indicated that the library shouldn't be on an external
presence anymore, it was all for internal use.  Hah.
 
Our library website
look and feel is now outdated and I think it would be good to be more compatible
with the fancier look and feel, color palette, fonts, etc. used by the CMS-driven
external website.  My students and I are working on creating a new template
this fall, within the confines of our own, homegrown CMS environment and at
a fraction of the cost of what has been spent (and will be spent) on the university-wide
commercial CMS/portal environment.  As others have already said, I have no
problem with general look and feel conformance, but I *do* have a problem
with not being able to implement customized functionality as needed and desired.
 I have no intention really of ever joining in with the campus-wide CMS/portal
platform if I can help it, because I do not trust that library issues and
concerns will ever be given the attention and primacy they deserve.  Just
one example that proves this point is that when the campus-wide portal environment
was recently unveiled, there was no space, anywhere, on the main page for
the library.  This in spite of the fact that my director pushed hard for that
and at one point was given to understand that there would be a required channel
for library information.  When the portal was unveiled and I noticed the absence
of a library channel on the main page, I was told that a small, unnamed group
of folks at the university level nixed the idea entirely as not necessary.
 Instead, what kinds of things did they put on the main page?  Oh, a very
large but blurry webcam image that points directly to the library, for one
thing.  Folks, this is a small campus and the library can be seen from just
about anywhere.

Steve

P.S.  I think about the only other positive thing
I can say about our new external website is that finally there is a link to
the library on the front page.  But once someone clicks on that link, they
are literally in a completely different environment from the rest of the university
website.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steve Oberg

Electronic Resources Librarian &
  Assistant Professor
Taylor University

www.taylor.edu