> If the firm or school can't provide real originality
> and still wants to be a player, then it should
> probably limit itself to being what I think is called
> a meta-site: to provide links to the best and
> brightest of other sites.
In our case, we saw a niche, namely a comprehensive jumping off point for
Nevada resources, and filled it. It seems facile to make links to other
people's original content without providing much original content of your
own, but believe me, when our web was in development it was TORTURE trying
to ferret out all those links. All the big sites such as FindLaw, Cornell,
etc., covered the basics for Nevada but there was much that was below the
radar for them. I can only assume it was just as difficult for attorneys,
librarians and students trying to find Nevada stuff on the web as it was for
us. Hence, the popularity of our service with local users.
Figuring out what the attorneys in your office actually want to use on the
web, and tailoring a nice set of links to make their lives easier seems the
logical approach for a law firm web administrator. If there are no pages
collecting all those local resources already (say at a law school or
government site), you could actually make a name for your web. Of course,
if someone already provides a page that handily meets your attorneys' needs,
just link to it and be done with it.
One more note: it's a real art in developing a links page to decide which
key sites will lead pretty directly to everything (rather than trying to
deep link and list every single item, e.g., on large state or county web
sites). The rule is: pick a few well-chosen deep links directly to stuff
your clientele will use often, (as long as deep links are O.K. with the site
you're linking to), plus links to the smallest number of sites which
themselves will point directly to all the other stuff.
James Quinn, Circulation Supervisor & Webmaster
UNLV Law Library
William S. Boyd School of Law
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
E-mail: quinnj@nevada.edu
Web: http://www.law.unlv.edu/library
Fax: (702) 895-2410
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:33:32 PST