[Web4lib] Library relationship with computer services dept

[Knight, Stacey]

Thanks to all of you who have responded to my e-mail.  Your response has
been tremendous and will help me to take the next steps in bringing some
ideas to our computer services department about how to possibly
reallocate some technology related responsibilities to the library.
Overall, we have a good relationship with our computer services
department, but one of the problems we face is that what the library
identifies as a priority to serve our students does not always end up
being a priority for computer services and falls to the bottom of their
project list.  In all fairness to them, they do not have the staff and
resources to handle all of the requests they receive.  We would like to
establish a point person in the library who could assume more direct
responsibility for some library technology such as maintenance of our
web pages, but with this request we face the larger issues of "trust"
and "control."  Currently almost everything technology related must go
through or be handled by computer services.  

 

For example, right now the only direct control we have over our web
pages is the content of pre-existing pages which we have through our
CMS.  Web editing privileges in our current CMS are very limited, and we
have no way to directly edit the html code on our pages.  Essentially
all we can change is the text of our pages.  If we want to use a larger
font size, a different font color, or put an image on one of our pages,
we must make a request to the university webmaster.  Similarly, any
requests for new pages must go through the university webmaster and be
created for us.  Any changes we make to our pages in the CMS are not
made live until they have been approved by the webmaster.  We did
establish an arrangement with the webmaster that has allowed me to
maintain two static html pages in table form which list all of our
electronic resources, but I must send the files to the webmaster to
upload to the server.  I would like to find a database driven solution
to manage all of our electronic resources, but my initial conversations
with computer services have fallen short.  

 

The library has taken some steps to be more involved in technology
initiatives at the institution level by requesting that a librarian be
part of the technology committee and the university web team.
Hopefully, this will help us to establish a more collaborative
relationship with computer services in the future.  

 

Thanks again for all of your responses.  I will compile a summary for
the list shortly, and all of the comments will remain anonymous.    

 

 

Stacey L. Knight

Research Services and Electronic Resources Librarian

Gary Library

Vermont College of the Union Institute and University

36 College St.

Montpelier, VT  05602

(802) 828-8618

Toll free: (800) 336-6794

stacey.knight at tui.edu