Intranet Information Page - LAM Visits

Two months ago we were charged with preparing for a project to redesign the Libraries' Intranet (the "The Libraries: What Every Employee Needs to Know" site -- http://www.nd.edu/~libstaff/).

As part of planning for the redesign project we met with a majority of LAM members to share the plan for the redesign and gather input and comments on the process.

What follows is a summary of what we heard in those meetings:

1) There was general agreement that the Intranet could be improved and broad support for the redesign project.

2) Most agreed that the ability to do keyword searching against the Intranet would be useful. One person suggested incorporating metadata into web pages so that, for example, a search on "journal", "periodical", or "serial" would retrieve the same pages.

3) A number of people felt the Intranet had the potential to be the Libraries' main vehicle for communicating with Library employees. Specific suggestions:

• A library newsletter for employees (son of Mosaic?)
• A current news section
• A bulletin board all library employees could post to.
  Examples: "car for sale", "need tickets to the football game."
• ULONs could be posted to the Intranet, with an email announcing the new ULON and providing a link to it. (Past ULONs would be accessible in the Intranet via browsing and searching.)
• All library reports, committee minutes, policies, etc. could reside in the Intranet, making it the place to find such information.
• Include model job descriptions, CVs, Collection Development policies to make it easier to prepare new instances of those types of documents.
• A library-wide calendar listing standing meetings such as LAM, LEC; academic events such as graduation, when school starts; and library events.
• A Chat feature could enable people to hold virtual meetings or post questions and get quick answers.
• The capability to work collaboratively on documents.

4) The various library directories could be combined into a single database with several views (employee, departmental, committee) accessible via keyword search or browsing. It would be possible to include employees' functions and expertise for a Libraries "yellow pages."

5) Several suggested using MyLibrary as the basis for the Intranet, to allow library employees to customize their Intranet pages. Others suggested looking into u-portal.

6) Several mentioned putting all forms on the Intranet, including forms for ordering supplies online and reserving rooms 222 and 222A in Hesburgh.

7) Creating a Libraries FAQ was mentioned several times, for information such as "Who do I see to get X done?"

8) Including staff pictures in a password-protected section of the Intranet came up several times. People mentioned going to library meetings and seeing employees they didn't know.

9) Use a content management system, templates to make it easier to maintain the intranet.

10) Ongoing maintenance of the Intranet will be important. Responsibility for adding and updating Intranet pages should be clearly designed. Each page should have the date it was last updated and list the contact person for the page.

Tom Lehman
Trudie Mullins
June 19, 2003