[WEB4LIB] Library web site relationship with parent institution site

[Carson, Bryan P.]

Hi All,

A brief history as context to my point: 

Middlebury College (http://www.middlebury.edu) is nearing the end of a long process of bringing its Web site into the Micro$oft CMS.  The process was begun in-house (but not by the Library) and a consultant was later brought in to tweak the final information architecture and give the site an up-to-date look. 

There is the standard College header and footer on every page, but there was also "sub-branding" of the some sub-sites in the left-side nav.  The library doesn't have a sub-brand yet, but it will.  There is also the library's being nested under "Academics" when it had previously had "front-page real estate" on the site's main page.

Of course all of this sent the expected shock waves through the community, but the end result was mostly positive.  Much of the opposition came from those who do not want things on the site to change, whether they functioned well or not.  In the Library, I was allowed to do most of the fixes to the site myself.  These mostly involved making the file structure match the navigation because the CMS demands this through dynamic navigation on every page.  Others involved solving problems in the best manner within the bounds of the MS CMS.

Below I address your points with examples from my experience at Middlebury College:


>>>We are writing a proposal to allow us to vary our home page from
>>>other sub-sites, as >>>we believe that the Library's web site is 
>>>quite different in purpose to most of the >>>other web pages of the 
>>>university, and that we are a destination in and of ourselves, >>>and 
>>>have much more complex transactions on our site than other sub-sites.

That you have more complex transactions than the other parts of your site is in my experience an argument FOR a CMS.  At Middlebury, the librarians were duplicating a lot of each other's work on the Web site by creating multiple static pages for various guides (subject, course, thesis, etc.).  I worked with our Web team to come up with CMS document templates to help us share the work.  This page (http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/lis/lib/indexes_and_journals/indexes_by_subject/psychology/major/), for example, is a dynamic page consisting of 9 individual documents.  8 of them are built on a template that stores a link and a text "blurb" (anything is actually allowed in the "blurb").  The rendering script tells the CMS to put the link left of its corresponding text (scope note in this page) and stack them up in a table.  (There is a default document template whose contents can be rendered above the stacked "link-blurbs" and thus act like a header.  It is not showing anything in my specific example.) 
  

Results: 

Librarians can share these individual documents to create different combinations on different pages.

All the links are pointed to a central list.

Individual pages return good results in the "search" function on the site.

Those are arguments you can bring to whomever is in charge to argue that your issues deserve special consideration.  My point with the example is also that there are ways to do what you want within the system and even improve them.  Think about the function of a page and see if the CMS can do it better.  However, you have to show those in charge that you want to do it within the CMS.  Then work with them actively.

I want to point out that if you go outside the CMS, your site's "search" function will not return any library pages?  (At least that is how it works in our implementation.)  

I have often argued that we (my librarian colleagues and I) might have to temporarily give up some of the "prettiness" that we cherish so much in order to implement a good information architecture, but that the results were worth it, and library users would not be fazed anyway.  In fact, consistency across a site makes it easier for a user.  (I have to say, that I find the navigation in your site here http://www.usc.edu.au/Students/Future/ 

easier to follow than here

http://www.usc.edu.au/Library/Library1.html  

The Uni's main site has navigation that follows the user and it has the "breadcrumb trail" at the top. 

If you work within the CMS and your priority is good information architecture, you will be in a better position to advocate for style changes later.  You may also find that your site has the groundwork laid for many things you had not thought of.  A few examples would be sites optimized for handhelds or portals for specific audiences.

To end, I would like to say the successful cooperation I discussed was with our internal Web Team.  The consultant (BigBad.com) basically left the library alone except for the placement in the IA that I mentioned above.


http://www.middlebury.edu

http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/lis/lib/


Bryan P. Carson
Electronic Services Librarian
Middlebury College
Library & Information Services
Middlebury, VT 05753

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Michelle Conkas
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 10:22 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Library web site relationship with parent institution site


Hi everyone,
 
We are in the process of moving our Library web site into our parent institutions content management system. We are the last area of the university to do so, and have struck some problems in control over the web site layout and design.
 
The university's site is here: http://www.usc.edu.au/. All sub-sites are currently lists of links made up of lower level directory structures, eg.: http://www.usc.edu.au/Students/Current/
 
We are writing a proposal to allow us to vary our home page from other sub-sites, as we believe that the Library's web site is quite different in purpose to most of the other web pages of the university, and that we are a destination in and of ourselves, and have much more complex transactions on our site than other sub-sites.
 
Our marketing department, who control the whole site, are concerned that if we are allowed to vary our templates, then everyone else will want to follow suit. We agree that we should fit into the university's look and feel, with basic colours and identifying banners (although I think the 2 banners are far too large and confusing for clients who enter into the library's site and expect to be in an independent site).
 
It has also been suggested that much of our content on our site is for internal staff and students, and so perhaps should be on a Intranet or portal, rather than a public site. We are strongly fighting against this suggestion. We feel our site should be an information tool for more than just our internal clients, and is not just a marketing tool for visitors.
 
Any tips on how to approach our need for independence and uniqueness? Any studies or papers that have been published on this topic?
 
Thanks,
 
Michelle
 
----------------------------------------------------------
Michelle Conkas
Systems & Digital Resources Coordinator
University of the Sunshine Coast Library
Ph: (07) 5430 2801
Fax: (07) 5430 2811
E-mail: mconkas at usc.edu.au
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