[Web4lib] city swallows library website

[Richard Wiggins]

Andrew, I'm glad LOM persuaded Michigan.gov to add  those redirects, but of
course once you get to the site, all you see are the junk URLs emitted by
the CMS, so bookmarking and citing becomes painful.  My warning was that if
your library Web site is being swallowed by a larger governmental entity,
fight for usable URLs.

I also note that they persuaded the powers that be to let the Michigan
Electronic Library (MEL), on whose board of advisors I served years
ago, have its independent presence as mel.org.  MEL is running sponsor
announcements on NPR and "Visit mel.org" is short and sweet.

/rich


On 5/3/07, Andrew Mutch <amutch at waterford.lib.mi.us> wrote:
>
> Rich raises many good points. However, in defense of the Michigan.gov web
> site, they did implement user-friendly URLs and redirects at the
> department and resource level:
>
> Department of History, Arts and Libraries
> http://www.michigan.gov/hal
>
> http://libraryofmichigan.org/
> [redirects to HAL site]
>
> Emerald Ash Borer [redirects to actual site]
> http://www.michigan.gov/eab
>
> The horrible URLs are still there but they have tried to address some of
> the problems created by that system.
>
> Andrew Mutch
> Library Systems Technician
> Waterford Township Public Library
> Waterford, MI
>
>
>
> > However you sort out the city Web presence versus the library's, fight
> for
> > a
> > usable domain and URL regimen.
> >
> > Under the administration of the previous government of Michigan,
> >
> > 1) The Library of Michigan was placed into a new department of History,
> > Arts, and Libraries.
> >
> > 2) The state Web presence was outsourced to IBM, which then
> > hosted Michigan state government content in Colorado.
> >
> > 3) IBM consultants chose a content management system (Vignette I
> believe),
> > and all state agencies were folded into a Michigan.gov domain, with URLs
> > generated by the CMS...
> >
> > The CMS, at least as implemented in this case, generates HORRIBLE URLs.
> > The
> > URL for the home page for the Library of Michigan, comes up as this:
> >
> > http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17445_19270---,00.html
> >
> > That's the URL for the *home page* of the Library of Michigan.  Try
> giving
> > that out on the radio or on a business card.
> >
> > Here is the memorable, hardly-radio-friendly, and utterly
> > indistinguishable
> > by human eyes, URL for the news from the State Librarian:
> >
> > http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17445_19270_29769---,00.html
> >
> > Michigan and the Midwest face a pest, the Emerald Ash Borer, that
> > threatens
> > to kill all our ash trees.   An official brochure from the state Dept of
> > Agriculture advised people to go to Michigan.gov and search for that
> pest
> > by
> > name.  Why?  Because the URL would not have fit in the brochure, and no
> > human could transcribe it into the address bar.
> >
> > Whatever you fight for in terms of content control, fight for citable
> > URLs.
> > Why not libraryofmichigan.org?
> >
> > /rich
> >
> >
>