Re: the value of IRs

["Greg Tananbaum" <gtananbaum@gmail.com>]

All good points, Sandy, and there is clearly some daylight 
between the potential benefits of an IR and what we are seeing in 
their actual execution.  I can think of two reasons off the top 
of my head why a series of departmental web sites would not be as 
effective as an IR in performing the tasks I previously 
enumerated, First, there are surely economies of scale to be 
gained by using a common software platform across multiple campus 
units.  The duplication of effort that goes into manning 
individual department web sites is nontrivial.  Each needs an IT 
person, a server, some form of content management system, a web 
publishing mechanism, and so forth.  An IR streamlines these 
redundancies.  Second, there are certainly people - prospective 
donors, students, researchers, etc. - who are interested not just 
in a single unit's scholarship but in the depth and breadth of an 
institution's intellectual output. For these souls, an IR 
provides a better window into what the institution as a whole is 
all about as compared to a series of piecemeal departmental web 
sites.

Best, Greg

-- 
Greg Tananbaum
Consulting Services at the Intersection of Technology, Content, & Academia
(510) 295-7504
gtananbaum@gmail.com
http://www.scholarnext.com