[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

[Steve Oberg]

Roy, Mark, et al.,

> I would be surprised if no library had yet thought to do this, but perhaps
> they haven't. I would argue, however, that if a library could register a
> useful domain (perhaps something in the .org or .info space) that they
> should host ALL of their pages on that server.

I know of some that already do this and for the very reasons outlined
below (hamstrung by local IT, e.g.).  One small academic institution
in this category runs Cold Fusion stuff from a hosted site, and has
done so for at least 2-3 years, I think.  In a previous job this
consideration (outsourcing to an external host) was always in my mind
and more importantly, in the mind of my library director, as a
possibility should we be restricted too much in terms of the types of
services we felt we needed to provide via our web presence.  We had
several local in house web services about which we routinely caught
flak from central IT folks.  Things got particularly pointed when the
campus moved to a commercial content management system.  There was
even serious talk about restricting the library website to the
intranet only in this new CMS environment (in other words, not
publicly accessible at all).  We needed to fend off a number of such
initiatives.  There is almost no library that is untouched by such
dynamics vis-a-vis central IT that I know of.

The recent discussion (on the COLLIB-L discussion list and then on
ACRLog yesterday) about the prominence of a link to the library's
website highlights this.  Increasingly, at least in my experience,
centralized IT operations are becoming more restrictive, not less, in
terms of rights and capabilities for distributed web content, due to
security issues and other things such as the introduction of centrally
managed content management systems.  There is an increasing tendency
to frown upon or disallow any "special situations" -- a category in
which libraries are frequently lumped.  I find this a very important
battle to fight because of the drastically increased importance of
delivering user-focused library content via library websites.  In
other words, we need to be ready to defend our "specialness" whenever
appropriate.  Why are we "special"?  Why do we need sometimes to "do
our own thing?"  One thing I know is that we don't have the luxury in
many instances of replying to such questions with a "just because"
kind of answer.

> I have long puzzled over libraries that languish unsupported and hamstrung
> by local IT outfits that simultaneously require all requests to go through
> them and routinely deny them all. Libraries must vote with their feet and
> remove themselves from dysfunctional situations that prevent them from doing
> what they need to be doing.

I very much agree!

Steve

-- 
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Steve Oberg
Family Man Librarian
www.familymanlibrarian.com