Today on ACRL TechConnect: Rethinking Library Web Governance

With my colleagues Anne Haines & Rachael Cohen, I wrote a piece that was published today on the ACRL TechConnect blog, “From Consensus to Expertise: Rethinking Library Web Governance.” [the blog has since been discontinued, so this link is to the archived version on the WayBack Machine.]

In it we grapple with some of the questions that we’ve been wrestling with over the last couple of years as we’ve undertaken a major site migration and redesign. One outcome of that project was that we began to ask ourselves what the library website is for, and how best to steward it for everyone’s benefit.

Internally we’ve referred to it as “The Manifesto” – although, being librarians, I guess it is still a rather mild manifesto when it comes down to it.

In some cases it has been easier to say what the library website is not – a catalog, a fixed-form document, a repository—although it facilitates access to these things, and perhaps makes them discoverable. What, then, is the library website?

What is it?! Well, enquiring minds that want to know: I’d encourage you to pop over and have a read of our thoughts on the subject. Our thanks to Eric Phetteplace and all the folks at ACRL TechConnect for the opportunity to publish this piece.