Untangling the Tangled Webs We Weave: A Team Approach to Cyberspace

Working in a cooperative team environment across libraries and job classifications, librarians and support staff at UCI have mounted several successful web projects, including two versions of the Libraries' home page, a virtual reference collection, and a Science Library ANTswer Machine. While on the face of it, UCI is simply another in the growing list of libraries to join the great web migration, our team-based structure, stressing shared responsibility and authority, make the approach to these projects novel. The panel outlined below offers insights into both the intellectual and technical processes that continue to inform the design and implmentation of the UCI Libraries' presence in cyberspace. The intended audience is librarians and other library staff involved in creating, designing, and/or maintaining library websites.

The panel covers four broad areas:

1. Background: the who, what, and why of the "teams"

   In order to appreciate fully the work that went into the design and implementation of UCI's various web projects, it is important to understand the context within which we hold our deliberations and make our decisions. The critical elements include:

   • The evolution of the projects (cooperative venture between libraries and Office of Academic Computing)
   • Initial home page design and implementation (reliance on external assistance and working against very short deadlines
   • The process of bringing responsibility into the library
   • Confronting issues of maintenance/governance
   • Learning to "publish" in a dynamic environment
   
   
2. The UCI campus environment: academic, social, political factors that informed our discussions/decisions.

   This portion of the panel will address such issues as:

   • How the unique structure of a highly inter- and multi- disciplinary campus influenced our discussions about the content and format of the libraries' home page and virtual reference collection
   • How the attempt to define and refine "reference" altered the content and format of the Virtual Reference Collection
   • How best to insure participation from the widest possible range of library staff in the identification and placement of sources on the home page and Virtual Reference Collection.
   
   
3. Operationalizing: look, criteria, standards

   If a picture is worth a thousand words, might not a number of pictures replace ten thousand words? This section addresses some of the difficult lessons we are still learning about the relationship between content and design, including:

   • What graphics or visual formats work and which ones make the user work.
   • Who can/should suggest new sites to add and who makes the final decision about enlarging or revising the "publication"?
   • What makes a site a good candidate for UCI's homepage or Virtual Reference Collection? How do we fight the quality versus quantity battle and still maintain a dynamic site?
   
   
4. Conclusion: where to from here?

   A brief overview of new projects and electronic opportunities currently underway at UCI, examining both how these fit into ongoing initiatives and how new directions force reconsideration of standards, guidelines, and criteria.