I've been having an interesting e-mail discussion with Brian since he posted an
e-mail about this subject yesterday, and he has asked me to make some comments
to the list.

I am exactly the sort of person Brian is referring to, and my arguments for
doing what I do (apart from the fact that it is in my job description) are as
follows:

1) National/international gateways don't exactly meet our requirements.
We have built up an impressive collection of aerospace resources tailored to
the needs of our users, and we also deal with relatively specialised subjects
such as environmental science and water science. It doesn't seem appropriate to
rely on national SBIGs such as EEVL (impressive as they are).

2) Our users are not sufficiently experienced or interested to search the
Internet in the way that we would like them to. I undertook some research into
user needs and attitudes re: the Net when I started this job and the evidence
suggested that awareness was very low and that a subject gateway at Cranfield
would improve the situation. We recognise the need to improve training as well
and though this approach is helping students, faculty are generally unwilling
to make the effort to learn more about it.

3) As Alison McNab suggested, there is a marketing issue. I have had enquiries
about courses and research interests here from people who have found my
gateway. The University recognises the importance of the Web for marketing
purposes, especially as we have a large overseas intake. Our gateway helps us
market our expertise and interests over the Web.

I see the institutional gateway perhaps performing an interim function. As
national and international gateways improve and as the skills of the user
increase this kind of approach may become redundant. There is, of course, an
ongoing eLib investigation into the effectiveness of the different models
available for locating Internet information and we have offered to share our
views and experiences using the institutional model with the consultants
concerned.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue and, as I discussed with Brian,
I would be happy to share my skills with ANR services. Personally, I haven't
been asked to do so (though EEVL links to the aerospace section of our
gateway). Brian also suggested that people such as myself could assist ANR
projects by investigating the potential of technologies they find they lack the
time to research, such as DHTML for example.

I agree with Brian that we should try and work to common standards and, where
possible, avoid unnecessary duplication. While I would be loathe to give up our
aerospace collection, I can see other areas where benefits are less obvious. In
subject areas where many of us are doing the same thing, such as business and
management, collaborative effort would be valuable.

For more information about what we are doing at Cranfield, there is an article
in the latest TLT Newsletter and our gateway (CRUISE) is at
http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/library/subjects/webinfo.htm

Simon

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Simon J. Bains
Network Information Specialist
Library
Cranfield University
Cranfield
Bedfordshire
MK43 0AL
Tel: 01234 754442
Fax: 01234 752391
Email: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/library/libinfo/mircstaf.htm
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