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Emerald Article: A strategic planning approach to Web site management

Laurel A. Clyde

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Libraries and the Web

A strategic planning
approach to Web site
management

Introduction
In today's world, it has become accepted that
an organisation, association, business, or
other institution will have a Web site.
Libraries are no exception to this trend. Web
sites can serve a wide range of purposes for an
organisation, and this is also true for libraries
and information agencies. For example,
library Web sites can be used to promote the
library and its services; to provide current
information about the library for library users;
to provide access to online and CD-ROMbased reference sources such as databases and
encyclopedias; to provide remote access to the
library catalogue and other databases created
by the library; to assist library users to explore
the Internet; to serve as the basis for
community projects; among other purposes.
However, not all these purposes are
appropriate for every library, and the different
purposes may suggest that different kinds of
Web sites would be appropriate for different
libraries.
However, Web sites are not always
developed or managed in such a way that they
help organisations (including libraries and
information agencies) to achieve their mission
or goals. As with any other project, the
development and maintenance of a Web site
can be managed so that resources are used to
further the aims of the organisation. This
article takes a strategic planning approach to
Web site creation, development, and
maintenance. Strategic planning relates the
activities of an organisation, such as the
development of an Internet presence, to the
mission and goals that should guide the
activities of the organisation, and provides a
basis for the allocation of resources to a
project and for its evaluation. The strategic
planning process has been applied to the
management of libraries and information
agencies in general (see, for example, Corrall,
1994, 2000) and to particular types of
libraries, such as school libraries (see, for
example, Clyde, 1999). The strategic
planning approach, as it relates to a Web site
(such as a library Web site), is summarised in
Figure 1.
The strength of this approach is that it
covers the Web site development process
from the time that the original planning
question is asked ``Should we have a Web
site?'' through all the planning phases from
the establishment of the site to its ongoing

Laurel A. Clyde

The author
Laurel A. Clyde is a Professor at the University of
Iceland, Reykajvik, Iceland
Keywords
Internet, Development, Strategic planning, Libraries,
Strategic management
Abstract
Many libraries are creating Web sites, to serve a wide
range of purposes. The author is Webmaster of the
International Association of School Librarianship (IASL);
using her own Web site as an example, she discusses a
number of issues and tasks associated with creating and
maintaining a professional Web site, within the context of
a strategic planning approach to Web site development.
Beginning with ``Should we have a Web site?'', the stages
of the process are outlined, including identification of
aims and objectives, analysis of user needs, selection of
content and services to be included, writing or developing
the content, developing the information architecture,
navigational aids, visual design of the site, HTML coding
or use of page development software, metadata,
mounting the completed pages on a Web server, testing
and modifications, listing with search engines and
directories, publicity and promotion, ongoing site
maintenance, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of
the Web site. The strategic planning process provides a
useful framework through which to view the many tasks
associated with Web site development and maintenance
and to conceptualise their relationship to one another.
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
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Volume 18 . Number 2 . 2000 . pp. 97108
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Volume 18 . Number 2 . 2000 . 97108

Laurel A. Clyde

and development, and which are needed at

only one or two stages. An inspection of
Figure 1 suggests that the following skills,
among others, are needed at various stages of
the Web site planning and development
process:
.
management and planning skills;
.
writing and /or journalism skills;
.
editing skills;
.
skills of information organisation and
presentation;
.
visual, photographic, and/or graphic
design skills;
.
HTML and other Web page development
skills (including, if necessary, skills
related to particular software packages for
Web page/site design);
.
skills in maintaining a Web server (which
involves system, software, and hardware
skills);
.
public relations skills;
.
interpersonal skills.

Figure 1 Strategic planning/development cycle for a Web site

operation and evaluation, and relates it to the

cycles of other aspects of an organisation's
planning. It also provides a basis for the
consideration of issues that are important at
each stage of the process. These issues
include identification of user needs, selection
and organisation of content, navigational aids,
value-added information services, and
ongoing monitoring and assessment of the
Web site. Examples from one of the author's
own Web sites, ``School Libraries Online''
(developed for the International Association
of School Librarianship, IASL see Figure
2), and other sources, will be used to illustrate
the points made.

Other skills that may be needed include skills

related to information searching (whether
print information or online information),
information evaluation skills, translation
skills, skills related to data entry, and UNIX
and/or Perl programming skills.
If a site, once created, will be relatively
stable, then writing skills and editing skills
may be needed mainly at the stage when the
pages of the site are being created. On the
other hand, if the site will change frequently,
then these skills will be needed on an
ongoing basis, for the regular addition of new
pages to the site or the updating of existing
pages. Any or all of these aspects of Web
page/site development might be contracted
to other parties, in which case, project
oversight or management skills will be
necessary within the library or information
agency.

Strategic planning and Web sites

The strategic planning process provides a
basis for the identification of the resources
and skills that are needed at each stage of the
Web page planning and development process.
The following resources may be needed at any
or all stages of the process, depending on the
nature of the Web site:
.
personnel/skills;
.
time;
.
money;
.
facilities, software tools, equipment.

The strategic planning cycle for a Web

site
Each of the aspects of the Web site planning
and development process as outlined in
Figure 1 is discussed briefly in this section of
the article. In the next section, some of the
issues that relate to more than one of these
aspects of the process will be mentioned
briefly, with reference to the wider Internet
context and to other sources of information.

Of these, the most important is personnel/

skills. The strategic planning process helps
library managers to see which skills are
needed at all (or most) stages of planning
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Figure 2 School libraries online: Web site of the International Association of School librarianship (http://www.hi.is/
~anne/iasl.html)

Should we have a Web site?

Increasingly, the answer to this question will
be ``Yes'', if only because people now simply
expect that an organisation like a library or
information agency will have a Web site. ``I
looked for you on the Internet but I couldn't
find anything''. Even worse: ``I looked for you
on the Internet but I couldn't find anything.
However, I did find another site that had
some helpful information . . .''.
In Iceland, where I work for most of the
year, and in my own country of Australia, it
is now expected that an organisation will
have an URL as well as an e-mail address on
business cards. The Icelandic and Namibian
telephone directories have listed URLs as
well as telephone and fax numbers for two
years.
It is hard to imagine an organisation that
would not benefit from a Web site. This
means that the decision becomes one of
``What kind of Web site should we have?'',
rather than ``Should we have a Web site?''.
However, a Web site represents an
investment of time and money, and planning
will help to ensure that the library or
information agency benefits from this
investment.

provide the basis for developing aims and

objectives for the Web site. The International
Association of School Librarianship, for
instance, has a wide-ranging mission
statement and a list of nine more specific
objectives (see Table I).
The objectives cover such matters as
advocating the development of school
libraries around the world, encouraging the
integration of school library programmes into
the educational programmes of schools,
promoting the professional development and
continuing education of school librarians,
fostering a sense of community among school
librarians, establishing relationships with
other organisations working in similar or
related fields, encouraging research in the
field of school librarianship, promoting the
publication of relevant information, sharing
programmes and materials, and coordinating
activities and conferences in the field of
school librarianship. It seemed that a Web site
might have something to offer in relation to all
of these objectives, though possibly to some
more than others.
Once a decision was taken that the IASL
Web site should support the mission and
objectives of the Association, then a simple
statement of purpose could be developed for
the Web site: ``School Libraries Online will
promote and support the work of school

Aims and objectives

The mission statement, aims, and objectives
of an organisation such as a library will
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Table I Mission and objectives of the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL)

Mission
The mission of the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) is to provide an
international forum for people interested in promoting effective school library media programmes as
viable instruments in the educational process. Membership is worldwide, and includes school librarians,
teachers, librarians, library advisers, consultants, educational administrators, and others who are
responsible for library and information services in schools. The membership also includes professors
and instructors in universities and colleges where there are programmes for school librarians, and
students who are undertaking such programmes.
Objectives
The objectives of the Association shall be:
To advocate the development of school libraries throughout all countries;
To encourage the integration of school library programmes into the instructional and curriculum
development of the school;
To promote the professional preparation and continuing education of school library personnel;
To foster a sense of community among school librarians in all parts of the world;To foster and extend
relationships between school librarians and other professions in connection with children and youth;
To foster research in the field of school librarianship and the integration of its conclusions with
pertinent knowledge from related fields;
To promote the publication and dissemination of information about successful advocacy and
programme initiatives in school librarianship;
To share information about programmes and materials for children and youth throughout the
international community;
To initiate and coordinate activities, conferences and other projects in the field of school librarianship
and information services.

libraries and teacher librarians around the

world''.
The main purposes of the Web site are:
.
to publicise the work of the Association;
.
to provide information about the
Association for members and nonmembers;
.
to support the development of school
library services; and
.
to help school librarians to explore the
Internet and specifically to help them to
find resources and services that are
relevant to library and information
services in schools.
Based on the objectives of the Association, it
was decided that the content of the Web site
should include information related to the
current status of school libraries in different
countries; information related to the
integration of school library programmes and
information skills into the educational
programmes of schools; professional
development information for school
librarians; information about other related
organisations and services; information about
and resources to support research in school
librarianship; and information about
conferences and other activities. It was also

decided that the Web site should publish

material related to school librarians and
school librarianship, and that it should be
developed in such a way that it promoted a
sense of community among teacher librarians
in different parts of the world. The latter
implies, among other things, interactive
elements that are still being added to the Web
site.
A similar process could be carried out in a
library; this involves an analysis of the mission
statement (if one exists), goals, and objectives
of the library and the extent to which they can
be supported or achieved through a library
Web site.
Specific goals based on user needs
The specific goals of the Web site will be
developed from the aims and objectives. As is
the case with School Libraries Online, it may
be that different parts of the Web site are
related to different objectives or goals.
Alternatively, different parts of the Web site
might be designed to meet the needs of
different groups of users. In both cases, the
potential users of the Web site should be
identified and their needs investigated. If the
needs of the potential users are not clearly

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understood, then those needs cannot be met

through a Web site. The potential users of
School Libraries Online were identified in the
mission of the Association: school librarians
(or teacher librarians or school library media
specialists), teachers, librarians, library
advisers, consultants, educational
administrators, and ``others who are
responsible for library and information
services in schools'', professors and
instructors in university and college
programmes for school librarians, students in
such programmes.
As it happens, the needs of these groups are
similar in terms of subject coverage, though
different in terms of specific applications (a
researcher in the field of school librarianship
might be more interested in resources for
research, whereas a school librarian working
with a group of teachers might be more
interested in educational resources to support
the curriculum). Thus the needs of users, as
well as the subject coverage, have guided the
development of different sections of the
School Libraries Online Web site.
Another aspect of user needs that should be
considered at this level of planning is the kind
of Internet access that potential users of the
Web site will have, for example, IASL has
members in developing countries as well as in
the more developed countries. Some IASL
members have very limited access to the
Internet; some still have text-only access to
the World Wide Web, while others are
accessing the Internet through very slow or
unreliable connections. For this reason, the
School Libraries Online pages have been kept
simple, with limited use of graphics (and with
repeated use of a small number of lowresolution graphics). While this is necessary
now, it may change in the future, and
strategies have been developed to monitor the
situation. The NetTraker service is being used
to record visits to the site; this service provides
information about the countries from which
users come, the machines through which they
are accessing the site, and the browser
software they are using. In June 1999, more
than half the people who accessed School
Libraries Online were using version 3.0 or
earlier of Netscape or Microsoft Internet
Explorer. This means that using Java on the
site, for instance, would disadvantage the
majority of users. However, it is also clear
from the NetTraker statistics that the
situation in relation to the hardware and

software that is available to users is changing.

For organisations concerned with current
technology, or whose mission is to promote
leading-edge technology, then this would not
be a consideration: the Web site of such an
organisation would be expected to provide an
example of the use of the advanced
technology that the organisation promotes.
Identification of content and/or services
Identification of the potential users of a Web
site will help to determine the kind of
information and services that will be provided
through the Web site. No site can be ``all
things to all people''. It is probable that the
potential users of a library's Web site will be
very similar to the users of that library's
information and services in real life, though
the geographical distribution of the users
might change.
There are three main sources of content for
any organisation's Web site: content created
within the organisation for other purposes;
content created within the organisation
specifically for the Web site; and content
developed or provided by others.
The following examples from School
Libraries Online will illustrate the potential of
these three sources:
(1) Content created within IASL for other
purposes:
.
the Handbook of Organization;
.
articles from the printed IASL
Newsletter;
.
the contents pages and abstracts of
the print journal School Libraries
Worldwide.
(2) Content created within IASL specifically
for the Web site:
.
reviews of books and other
professional materials;
.
the IASL Noticeboard;
.
``School Library Resources on the
Internet''.
(3) Content developed or provided by others:
.
current news items from more than
300 news sources (from Excite);
.
``Did You Know/'' (a ``daily factoid''
and list of Web sites from Barbara J.
Feldman, author of a syndicated
column, ``Surfing the net with kids'');
.
a Daily Almanac (from
Infoplease.com).
It may be necessary for a library to have a
policy about content (information and

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services) provided through the Web site.

Certainly, decisions will have to be made
about information that will be provided about
the organisation, topic coverage of the Web
site, selection and evaluation of links and
content/services created outside the
organisation, quality standards, responsibility
for content/services, any use of filtering. The
aims of the Web site and the needs of the
intended audience or users will provide a
basis for policy development and for decision
making about content.
Writing or developing the content
Although it seems obvious, many
organisations do not understand that ``writing
for the Web'' really is writing. Writing for the
Web is even more public than writing a print
brochure. It requires good writing skills and
sometimes journalism skills. This is not a task
that can be handed to just anyone though
the amount of bad writing on the Web
suggests that this is sometimes the case. There
are a number of issues to be considered in
relation to writing for the Web. Who are the
likely users of a Web site (or of this particular
section of a Web site)? What level and type of
language will appeal to them? Should the
writing on the Web site be formal or informal?
Should the writing on the organisation's Web
site be different from the writing in the
organisation's print publications (in terms of
level, style, and tone)? If the latter is the case,
then material from the organisation's print
publications will have to be rewritten for the
Web.
It may be necessary to commission writing
for the library's Web site, if the skills of writing
for the Web are not available in-house. It is
most likely that this will be the case if the
potential audience for the Web site is very
different from the established audience for a
library's print publications and handouts.
Developing the information architecture
The term ``information architecture'' is used
to describe the ways in which information can
be organised and presented to meet the needs
of the user. On the Web, there are two main
levels of information architecture:
(1) the organisation of information on the site
as a whole; and
(2) the organisation of information within
individual pages on the Web site.

Information architecture incorporates

developing a classification or structure for the
Web site; specifying the relationships between
sections and/or pages on the Web site; and
developing structures for the content on
individual pages. A number of publications
have emerged in the last three years that
address these issues (see for example, Ford,
1996; Rosenfeld and Morville, 1998; Trickey,
1998). Structures for organising information
on Web sites or on individual pages might be
based on:
.
the structure of the institution/
organisation/library itself;
.
any formal classification used in the
subject field of interest to the organisation
or library (for example, a botanical
classification for an organisation
concerned with flowers);
.
hierarchical structures (working from the
general to the specific in any field, for
example, animals in general, to specific
groups of animals, to specific species, to
individual animals);
.
logical classifications (for example, a site
concerned with products for car
maintenance might begin with the front of
the car and work towards the back, or with
the external bodywork and work inwards);
.
geographical classifications (for example,
on a tourism site, the world as a whole,
then continents, then countries, then
states or provinces or regions within a
country, then individual cities and
towns);
.
from the most recent to older material
(for example, news items dealing with a
particular topic);
.
from older material to the present (for
example, on a site dealing with the history
of a topic);
.
by school or university subject or school
curriculum classification (for example, on
an educational site);
.
in alphabetical order (by name, or author,
or title, or city, or topic);
.
in Dewey classification sequence (this is
not used just for libraries see, for
instance the GEO Earth Science Web site
for secondary schools[1]);
.
numerically, from the most numerous to
the least (or least to most), or from largest
to smallest, or from smallest to largest;
.
or one of any number of other possible
sequences or classifications.

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The important factor is that the sequence or

classification make sense to users of the Web
site/pages and are helpful to them.
Developing navigation tools for users
The navigation tools for users should make
the underlying information architecture
transparent for them, and help them to work
through the Web site (or a Web page) in a
logical way (Fleming, 1998; Garlock and
Pionek, 1998; Nielsen, 1999). The navigation
tools should also help the users to maintain a
mental map of where they are in the Web site,
and how the various sections of the Web site,
and the various pages, are related to each
other. Tools for navigation include:
.
menus;
.
directories;
.
navigation panels;
.
frames;
.
buttons;
.
site maps;
.
subject trees;
.
a search engine;
.
image maps;
.
colours (for background, or headings, or
lettering);
.
symbols.
Many sites employ a number of these
strategies, so that users always have a range of
visual clues to help them to orient themselves,
and to find information on a Web site.
Visual design of the Web pages
The visual design of Web pages and sites has
been discussed by several authors, sometimes
in a positive way (``Web sites that work'',
Black and Elder, 1997) and sometimes from
the opposite point of view (``Web pages that
suck'', Flanders and Willis, 1998), whereas
others discuss design for the Web in general
(Holzschlag, 1998; Baumgardt, 1998;
Navarro and Khan, 1998). The visual design
of the pages relates to the needs of the users,
the topic/s covered by the Web site and/or
individual pages, to the underlying
information architecture, and to the
navigation tools that will be provided. In
addition, the ``look and feel'' of the Web site
will be an important factor in attracting users.
The visual design of pages includes:
.
creation and use of images;
.
graphics and logos;
.
typography;
.
backgrounds;

.
.

navigation panels and buttons;

colour.

Just as a professional writer or journalist may

make an important contribution to the text of
a Web site, so a professional designer or
graphic artist may make an important
contribution to the visual appeal of the site as
a whole and the individual pages on the site.
HTML coding or use of page
development software
This is the aspect of Web site development for
which most information is available; in fact,
the flow of books about HTML (among other
Web mark-up languages) and other aspects of
Web page creation seems never-ending,
despite the fact that much of the technical
information is also available free on the
Internet itself. Among the recent books about
HTML itself are those by Dell (1998),
Graham (1998), Pfaffenberger (1998),
Phillips and Darnell (1998), and Ray and Ray
(1999); in addition, dynamic HTML has also
been the subject of books, including titles by
Holzner (1998), Francis, Homer and Ullman
(1999), and Schmuller (1998). Several books
deal with the use of particular Web page
authoring tools, including PageMill (Langer,
1999) and FrontPage (Matthews and
Poulsen, 1999). Various publications deal
with Java (for example, Cunningham, 1997;
Hughes, et al., 1999), Java applets (for
example, Richardson et al., 1998), and
JavaScript (for example, Barrett et al., 1999).
Other topics covered include using Adobe
Acrobat for presenting documents on the
Web (Merz, 1998) and streaming multimedia
(Alvear, 1998). One of the author's teaching
Web pages[2] provides a guide to the
resources on the Web for HTML and Web
page development, including links to the
relevant software.
Addition of metadata
Metadata was developed as a standard
method for describing datasets; as such it has
been adapted to the Web in the form of the
Dublin Core Metadata Element Set or
``Dublin Core''[3,4]. On the Web, metadata
is data about the data on a Web page,
supplied by the page creator and/or an
indexer. The Dublin Core itself consists of 13
core elements, including subject, title, author,
publisher, ``other agent'' (such as an editor or
a translator), date, object type (such as a

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dictionary or an article), source, language.

Some Web page development software
packages automatically include some
metadata in a Web page. The metadata is in
the coded HTML tags for the page, not on
the page itself; it can be read by many search
engines and other Web indexing tools. It is
the Internet equivalent of the cataloguing data
that are provided for books in libraries,
serving to identify and describe Internet
sources. Metadata is one potential solution to
the problem of long and inappropriate lists of
``hits'' as a result of a keyword search of the
Web; its use could make Web searching more
accurate. Attention to metadata during the
Web page creation process will help to ensure
that a Web site is listed and indexed
accurately by search engines, and that it
appears appropriately in lists of search results.
Mounting the completed pages on a Web
server
The main question to be resolved here is
whether the library or information agency will
establish and maintain its own Web server, or
whether it will use space on the Web server of,
for example, an Internet service provider
(ISP) or an academic institution. No Web
space is really ``free''; there will be costs
involved in any of the options, even if there is
no direct charge. If the decision is that the
library will have its own Web server, then
procedures for mounting pages on the Web
site should be established (including any
approval procedures that might be necessary
before a page is made public). If the decision
is to use space on another Web server, then
procedures for mounting pages on the server
or sending pages to the server (whether by
telnet, or ftp, or e-mail) will probably be
established as part of the conditions of access
to the server. The library may still need to
establish internal procedures for approving
any pages before they are made public on the
server.
Testing and modifications
Depending on the server facilities, it may be
possible to test pages before they are mounted
on the Web server. Whether before they are
mounted on the Web server or afterwards, the
Web site as a whole, and individual pages,
should be tested thoroughly and any
necessary modifications made. This testing
should have a number of different aspects:

testing against the original aims/objectives

and user needs;
testing of links and services available
through the pages to ensure that they are
operational;
testing the pages in as many different
browsers as possible, and as many
different versions of the browsers as
possible, as well as on as many different
computers and screens as possible, to
ensure that design features work across
different hardware and software
configurations;
testing for readability of the text and the
helpfulness of any navigation features.

People who have not been involved in the

design and development process should be
involved in the testing process. These people
should, as a group, resemble the potential
user group/s for whom the Web site was
designed. In addition, there are technological
options for testing some of the features of a
Web site: for instance, Web Site Garage on
the Internet[5] allows site developers to test
technical features of the Web site, including
the HTML code and the links.
Listing with search engines and
directories
There is no point in having a Web site if no
one visits it. Having a Web site listed with the
major Internet search engines and directories
is the first step in making the site available to
potential users. The general search engines,
like AltaVista, Excite, Northern Light, and
Hotbot, list all kinds of Web sites, and bring
visitors through the results of searches. Some,
like AltaVista, use the metadata on the Web
site (if it exists) to describe the site when they
present the search results to the user. There
are also search engines and directories that
cover particular topics, such as electronic
commerce, or education, or business studies,
or nursing. Anyone who is developing a Web
site should become familiar with the search
engines and directories that cover the same
subject matter as the Web site, as well as with
the general search engines. Most search
engines and directories add Web sites to their
databases in two ways: they send out
``spiders'' or software robots to identify new
Web sites; and they accept recommendations
from Web site developers and users.
The following options are available to Web
site developers who want to ensure that their

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sites are listed with the general search engines

and the search engines and directories that
cover the topic:
.
contact all the major search engines and
directories individually, and provide
information about the Web site, in the
format required by the particular search
engine or directory (generally speaking,
this is the most effective option, but it
does take time);
.
use one of the free services (such as
SmartAge[6]), that will send information
about a Web site to a number of search
engines and directories (but recognise
that this approach may not meet the
particular needs of individual search
engines or be in the best interests of a
particular Web site, since each search
engine or directory has specific
requirements);
.
use one of the paid services (such as
SmartAge, which submits data about a
site to more than 400 search engines for a
fee, or Web Site Garage[5]), that promise
to ensure listing on the major search
engines but monitor the results.
Bear in mind that some search engines take as
long as six weeks to list a Web site once
information about it has been submitted. Bear
in mind, too, that some search engines charge
fees to list Web sites high amongst the search
results for any topic.
Advice about obtaining the best listings
with the various search engines is provided by
the free fortnightly electronic newsletter, All
About Search Engines, compiled by Linda
Anderson (aka ``Windsong'')[7].
Publicity and promotion
In order to capitalise on their investment in a
Web site, libraries and information agencies
need to take steps to ensure that as many
people as possible ``visit'' their site. There is
some advice on the Internet itself that will
help with this (see, for example[8]). Other
steps that Web site builders can take to
promote their Web site include the following:
.
disseminate press releases in print and email form;
.
ensure that all of the stationery used by
the library or information agency, all
business cards, and all e-mail
``signatures'', carry the URL of the Web
site;

ensure that the URL appears in the

telephone directory and any local
information or trade directories;
ensure that the library's parent
organisation (university, school, local
government authority, business,
government agency) features the library
URL on the organisation's own Web site;
write about the Web site in appropriate
newsletters, professional journals, and
local and trade publications;
offer conference presentations, papers,
and poster sessions about the Web site to
the organisers of conferences and
seminars, including local conferences and
seminars in other professional or specialinterest fields;
notify local ISPs (Internet service
providers), so that the Web site is listed in
any directories that they might create;
notify online services such as NETHAPPENINGS[9], so that their
subscribers are informed about the site;
offer to ``exchange links'' with the
Webmasters of other organisations within
the local community or the specialinterest field, to increase traffic to both
sites;
investigate link exchange programmes
such as MSN Link Exchange, though be
aware that many offer only one link to
your site for every two that you provide to
them;
investigate banner exchange programmes
such as Beseen's Banner Exchange[10];
notify the Webmasters of any directory
sites that are appropriate, such as
directories of library Web sites, or
directories in the subject field covered by
the Web site;
nominate for the various Web site awards,
such as the ``Webbies'' (billed as the
Internet equivalent of the ``Oscars'').

Ongoing site maintenance

This stage is highlighted in Figure 1 because
it is the stage of the Web site planning and
development process that occupies the most
time and requires ongoing commitment.
This is where ``real life'' takes place the
Web site has been planned and developed
and is operational. At this point, many
libraries and information agencies consider
that the work is done: they have a Web site,
and they can move on to other things.
However, a Web site represents an ongoing

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commitment. It has to be monitored and

tended carefully, in the light of new
developments in the organisation of which
the library is a part, the library itself, and in
the Internet. If this does not happen, the site
will become less and less relevant to the
needs of users and will begin to look oldfashioned in the rapidly-changing
environment of the Internet. The following,
among others, are aspects of ongoing site
evaluation and maintenance that need to be
considered and planned for:
.
monitoring usage of the Web site;
.
ongoing evaluation of the extent to which
the site meets user needs;
.
ongoing evaluation of the site in relation
to new developments in information
technology in general and the Internet in
particular;
.
updating existing content;
.
adding new content to the site;
.
adding new services and features to the
site;
.
checking and maintaining links;
.
maintaining navigational structures;
.
checking listings of the site by search
engines and directories and updating
them;
.
responding to any e-mail or regular mail
correspondence related to the site;
.
maintaining the hardware and software
that support the site;
.
staff and user training;
.
ongoing publicity and promotion
particularly in relation to any changes in
the site;
.
planning for the future.
Periodic formal evaluation
Every Web site should be reviewed at
regular intervals; at this time, attention
should be paid to the following points,
among others:
.
Is the Web site still appropriate in terms
of the aims, objectives, goals, user needs,
and the needs of the organisation or the
library?
.
Does the Web site make appropriate use
of newly-emerging developments in Web
technology?
.
Is the Web site fulfilling the aims that
were established for it? Are those aims
still appropriate?
.
Who is actually using the Web site and
why, and are they the people for whom it
was originally developed?

Information collected through this review

process feeds through to the beginning of a
new cycle in the strategic planning process.
There are many different strategies and
techniques for ongoing monitoring and
evaluation of Web sites; however, not all of
these will be appropriate or useful in all
settings. Some of them (such as the use of the
NetTraker tracking service) have been
alluded to already in this article. These
strategies and techniques include:
.
questionnaire surveys (using both mailed
and electronic survey instruments);
.
Web-based response forms;
.
other strategies for collecting feedback
from users of the Web site, including
collecting information from participants
in courses or seminars in which the Web
site is used, or from people who watch
demonstrations of the Web site;
.
interviews with users of the Web site
(including interviews via electronic mail,
IRC, or MOO);
.
checking references to the Web site in the
professional or research literature or in
the newspapers and trade magazines;
.
submission of the Web site for awards
and prizes for Web site development;
.
technical tools and strategies, including:
counters and trackers on Web pages;
log files on the Web server;
a guestbook on the Web site;
interactive banners on Web pages;
cookies (bearing in mind the
opposition to cookies from some
users);
Web-based link tracers through the
Internet search services.
.
benchmarking against leading sites in the
same field;
.
formal evaluation of the Web site by an
outside, independent expert.
Other aspects
If the Web site is interactive, then there will be
other activities and issues to be considered as
part of the planning and development
process. These may include any of the
following, among others:
.
design of forms (such as order forms or
conference registration forms), data
capture and storage, and responses to
forms;
.
design of a search interface to a
searchable database (such as a database

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of members or products) and design of

reports;
development or installation of a search
engine and maintenance of the search
engine database.

which resources and personnel (time) are

needed on a continuing basis. It is a process
that can assist librarians to plan appropriately
for the creation and management of a library
Web site that will further the aims and
objectives of the library or information agency
and assist in meeting the needs of users.

Issues associated with Web site

development

References

This article mentions many issues in the

context of the various stages in the strategic
planning process for Web site development.
Some of these issues, and others, are
important across many (or even all) of the
stages of planning. They include the
following:
.
identification of user needs;
.
selection and evaluation of
information[11];
.
organisation of information;
.
currency of information;
.
copyright/intellectual property issues;
.
personal privacy;
.
monitoring future developments.
Addressing these issues will require input
from different sectors of an organisation and/
or the library or information agency, on an
ongoing basis. Furthermore, because these
issues have implications across the various
stages of Web site development and in other
aspects of the activities of an organisation,
they should be monitored by personnel who
have an overview of the organisation as well as
of the Web site.

Conclusion
The strategic planning process provides a
useful framework through which to view the
many tasks associated with Web site
development and maintenance and to
conceptualise their relationship to one
another. It brings together information about
the personnel (and skills), facilities and
equipment, software, financial investment,
time commitment, that will be necessary at
each stage of the Web site development
process, matching them to the tasks that need
to be performed at each stage. In this way, it
facilitates forward planning for Web site
development. It also highlights the fact that
Web site development and maintenance are
ongoing activities (not a ``one-off project'') for

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