webmasters anyone? 1

[SoClueless]

I work in a public library district and am on the committee to help develop a new website. My work at the library involves acquisitions so I am not really a techie, more a techie-wannabe. Our committe is researching how to go about advertising a position as webmaster if the district decides that is the way to go. What things to look for, what type of salary is expected? We are a 2 hour drive north of nyc. We already have a website up and running, but are, perhaps, looking to jazz it up a bit and make it easier to update. Management would like staff members to be able to update in their areas without too much hassle. Any thoughts? Are there benefits to hiring a consultant to do the work vs having someone on staff?

Any input would be valuable. Thanks and have a good night.

Peggy

 

[martyh]

Well, I ran my own website business for a few years before I changed "real" jobs and now I don't have time. Whether to outsource your web development depends on a number of factors. This is not a magic bullet just a few random thoughts to help you decide the way to go

First off, you need to decide what kind of site you are wanting to develop. Will it be predominantly static content with the odd dynamic feed or input. By that I mean HTML pages that someone has to update periodically, with the odd table field containing links to other sites' data feeds. Or will it be totally dynamic with content being generated as the user demands the page (each time you visit you see something different)?

If you decide to go with the latter, you would be better of getting a consultant to design it and set it up because the fulltime salary for someone to do that would be cost-prohibitive for any library I have been in Just make sure you contract in training for your staff to maintain the site so you don't need to pay $150/hr everytime you need a tweak or an update.

The former would be a good choice for an in-house webmaster equipped with the right tools. Macromedia produce a couple of web suites that would provide all the tools you would need to create and run a good site, with dynamic content and "user editable" regions that ould allow non-techies to update the site with a minimum of training (MX Studio and Contribute). Are there other tools out there that achieve the same aim? Probably, but I am familiar with the Macromedia tools and they work.

Make no mistake though, it would be a full-time job (assuming you want a good site with changing content). There's nothing worse than a site being the same, visit after visit. If you get a good sample of visitors with high hit rates, you could even sell banner adds to local sponsors to offset the salary of the webmaster.

Like I said, just some rambling to get you thinking. Hope it helps.

Marty
Network Admin
Hilliard Schools