Library subdomain names
Cary Gordon
listuser at CHILLCO.COM
Thu Aug 8 10:04:15 EDT 2013
Got it. That would make manhattan.edu/library the obvious choice. Any issues there?
Thanks,
Cary
On Aug 7, 2013, at 10:53 PM, Stacy Pober <stacy.pober at MANHATTAN.EDU> wrote:
> Honestly, how difficult is it to change your ezproxy links?
>
> Honestly, it's an expensive PITA.
>
> The other possibility would be to redirect the ezproxy links based on the port, assuming that you don't use 80 or 443 for ezproxy.
>
> We are now using port 80 for EZproxy. We recently switched to 'proxy by hostname' setup.
>
> It would be hard to track down every proxied link. Many databases route their outbound links and customized 'durable URLs' through the EZproxy server. Not all vendors have customer admin systems where you can directly alter the setup. Also, every proxied link in a Libguide or Moodle course would have to be changed, and all instructors would have to be notified since we can't access or alter their course pages.
>
> Since you are using Koha (Good for you!), changing the links in the catalog is almost trivial.
>
> Frankly, it has not been good for us. We aren't using the free open-source version of Koha. We are using a fork of Koha from LibLime/PTFS that's hosted by them. We're in a group of libraries that are effectively beta test sites for each new release of this forked version. It's buggy and routine work takes much more staff time because of its deficiencies.
>
> In any case, we can't just alter all the links in Koha as we do not have direct control of our server or database. Liblime offered to sell us five hours of "data consulting services" to change the links, which would be a non-trivial amount of money.
>
> Renaming the EZproxy server is not an attractive option when our current EZproxy setup is reliable and trouble-free. I think the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" rule applies here.
>
> I hope that you are using a CMS for your new site.
>
> The site will use Drupal.
>
> Thanks to all for the suggestions.
>
> Stacy
>
> --
> Stacy Pober
> Information Alchemist
> Riverdale, NY 10471
> stacy.pober at manhattan.edu
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 5:46 PM, Cary Gordon <listuser at chillco.com> wrote:
> Honestly, how difficult is it to change your ezproxy links? Seems like a few well thought out regexes would do the job. The other possibility would be to redirect the ezproxy links based on the port, assuming that you don't use 80 or 443 for ezproxy.
>
> Since you are using Koha (Good for you!), changing the links in the catalog is almost trivial.
>
> I think that library.yourinst.edu is a brand that every academic library should own.
>
> I hope that you are using a CMS for your new site.
>
> library.++
> mclibrary.--
>
> Thanks,
>
> Cary
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 2:20 PM, Stacy Pober <stacy.pober at manhattan.edu> wrote:
> Richard,
>
> Thanks for sharing.
>
> We are going to be one of the first subdomains, though others are planned as part of some overall website changes.
>
> Until I read the responses, I was unaware that a direct link to the library had been taken off our college's home page. That is a recent change, and not a welcome one. I think that having it hidden in the "Quick Links" section makes it less accessible, and I will certainly initiate a discussion on this.
>
> I just tried to find some research on this issue, and had a little trouble finding what I needed. Found tons of articles on library webpages and the links on them, but less on library links on the college home pages. If anyone can point me to some studies of library link placement on college and university homepages and their effect on usage, that would be really useful.
>
> I had not thought about the "McLibrary" connotation... which seems really obvious now that you pointed it out!
>
> Thanks for the responses.
>
> Stacy
>
> On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 4:21 PM, Richard Wiggins <richard.wiggins at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is something that institutions of all sizes wrestle with, as they have ever since the Web era began. When do you use subdomains? When do you use a "folder" - virtual or real - anchored off the main site? When do you create a new domain? Disney screwed this up with their "go" subdomains. CBS uses cbsnews.com instead of news.cbs.com.
>
> But you folks appear to have it simple. From a glance it appears that the major entry points at manhattan.edu are manhattan.edu/topic - About, Admissions, Academics. What's wrong with manhattan.edu/library ? Seems clean and simple.
>
> I do believe in generous redirects based on log analysis. I just tried http://www.cbs.com/news and it failed to give the obvious redirect.
>
> Frankly, making your main link mclibrary.manhattan.edu because of a previous choice of a proxy server strikes me as an unfortunate choice, though understandable based on history. But is your library branded in any way as "mclibrary" ? Not a good brand.
>
> I'd worry more about why a search from the manhattan.edu home page doesn't bring up your library at the top of the hit list, and why the library is not more prominently featured on the home page.
>
> Just 2 cents' worth from far away. Good luck!
>
> /rich
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Stacy Pober <stacy.pober at manhattan.edu> wrote:
> As part of our web redesign, we are being given the opportunity to have our own subdomain in the college's website.
>
> The most logical name would be "library" but that one is already being used for our EZproxy server, and it would be most onerous to change over 100,000 EZproxy links in our catalog, libguides, etc.
>
> We've thought about some alternative subdomain names such as lib or mclibrary. Anyone have some library subdomain naming wisdom they'd like to share?
>
> --
> Stacy Pober
> Information Alchemist
> Manhattan College Library
> Riverdale, NY 10471
> stacy.pober at manhattan.edu
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> Stacy Pober
> Information Alchemist
> Manhattan College Library
> Riverdale, NY 10471
> stacy.pober at manhattan.edu
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> Cary Gordon
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