[Web4lib] Hey, look, a job for David!

[McHale, Nina]

So, David, how do you feel about Michigan? East Lansing is lovely! And
you're used to cold winters, right? :)

A position like the one just posted (web/reference combined) might be
the way to transition into a new web-focussed career. One word of
caution, though: I held a similar position before coming to Auraria, and
I ended up not liking it. (The position specifically, not the place, if
any of my former colleagues are reading this!) It did, however,
sucessfully transition me from reference to systems.

It's my feeling that if you're responsible for the "entire web presence"
of a large institution's library(ies), that ought to be all that you're
doing. I didn't feel like I had time to do everything that I needed to
do for reference (which included desk time, a bit of collection
development, and a fair bit of instruction) and give the web site the
attention it really needed in terms of maintenance and upkeep. I jumped
from web project to web project with no time for basic cleanup,
maintenance, and upgrades. The web site was 30% of my job description,
and it took up 90% of my time.

My dorky web analogy for all of this is that a combined reference/web
job is like web design with table-based layouts: it works okay, and it's
good enough for a small site. A web-only position in systems is like
XHTML+CSS web design: by separating the content from the structure, your
end product is more flexible, easier to maintain and upgrade, and is
more standards-compliant.

My current 100% web job is a better fit for me. I do miss contact with
the students--and it's obviously crucial for the web person to
understand their needs--but I find ways to sneak in reference-y
activities here and there, like staffing the info desk we put by the
entrance for the first 3 weeks of each semester and doing usability
testing.

Nina

Nina McHale, MA/MSLS
Assistant Professor, Web Librarian
Auraria Library

Serving the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences
Center-Downtown Campus,
Metropolitan State College
and the Community College of Denver

1100 Lawrence Street
Denver, Colorado 80204
303-556-4729

nina.mchale at cudenver.edu