[Web4lib] Electronic Library

Brian Gray mindspiral at gmail.com
Fri Jul 24 13:53:49 EDT 2009


If you real driving force is to "gets their juices going" so it leads to
discussion and maybe development, would it not be better to show a more
established and existing product from another organization rather than one
that has minimal value up front?

Brian Gray
mindspiral at gmail.com
bcg8 at case.edu


On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Sharon Foster <fostersm1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> That's the beauty of something like Greenstone. It doesn't require a
> big investment to get a prototype going. It's not a matter of weeks or
> months, it's more like hours and days.
>
> I completely agree with you that the administrative details are what's
> going to take the most time to resolve, but having something like this
> to show people gets their juices going, and they can more readily see
> things like, "Oh, no I don't want it organized like *that.*"  I like
> to call it the "bring me a rock" principle.
>
> "Bring me a rock."
> ...
> "No, not that rock. Bring me another rock."
>
> Repeat.
>
> Sharon M. Foster, JD, MLS
> Librarians bring order out of chaos.
> http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Thomas Dowling<tdowling at ohiolink.edu>
> wrote:
> > On 07/24/2009 11:39 AM, Suelzer, Elizabeth wrote:
> >> ...I
> >> think I'm going to focus on Greenstone for now since I can download this
> >> onto my computer and start working with it right away; I'm supposed to
> >> get a prototype going in the next few weeks.
> >
> >
> > I don't think you can make "for now" decisions here.  Once you pick a
> platform,
> > sheer inertia is going to keep you on it for quite a while.  If you avoid
> a
> > well known, well respected platform used by many similar programs, just
> because
> > IT needed another week or two to install it, it's a decision you could be
> > kicking yourself about for years.
> >
> > Let me strongly recommend that you *not* make this strategic decision
> based on
> > what you can prototype within such an unrealistic timeline.  In my
> experience,
> > getting a successful ETD program rolling requires a lot of time and
> effort
> > getting buy-in from faculty and students, and then lots of time
> establishing
> > workflow and policies.  In other words, months of meetings and one-on-one
> > discussions (even if you just have a couple hundred theses to put up).
>  Use
> > that time to establish your actual needs - now and in the foreseeable
> future -
> > and determine what platform best meets those needs.  If you need to show
> people
> > "Here's what it might look like," mock up some dummy HTML pages.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Thomas Dowling
> > tdowling at ohiolink.edu
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
>
>
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