Sep 25 2008
W(h)ither Strongest Links? Is there a future for the site?
I would like to start a debate here about Strongest Links. This was set up about 5 or 6 years ago to act as a support website for UK school librarians. There was very little available in this country at that time – the SLA had a very basic site and SLG’s was similar. I saw a niche for a site that would be useful to my colleagues.
My reasons for creating the site were:
- To support my colleagues in the UK
- To develop my web-building skills through a project that I thought would be useful
- To have a place to store my huge number of bookmarks that were constantly being lost on my school network
- To raise my profile in the profession – I am not ashamed of that statement – I am being honest here!
- To have a place to put miscellaneous stuff!
The site is written at home and in my own time using Frontpage. I gave it a re-vamp last year to update the look and incorporate a bit more of a Web2.0 feel.
However…
The world has moved on apace and now the SLA at least has a much better and more informative site and I am sure that SLG will follow. I have now developed a wider range of skills and am working on blogs and wikis and enjoying the ease of creation and editing that these bring – my new school library website is testament to that.
So these are the issues for me:
- The site has not been updated for quite some time, as I have very little time available at home to work on it. As it is written using Frontpage, I can only edit it at home and not add things on the fly as I can do with my school site.
- Is it really being used by anyone? I can see the hits on the site, but I don’t know how useful it is any more.
- Should I spend some time at half term updating it? If so, which sections are useful and which should I get rid of?
- Would I regret it if I closed it down?
- Should I offer it to someone else? If so, who would want it?
- I think that the wiki part was not useful, so I will delete that – does anyone mind?
If people want me to carry on with it, I am happy to do so. I just need some feedback to help me decide. If you want it to continue, please let me know…
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Hi Anne
I have always – and still do – find your site very valuable and it would be a shame to lose the wealth of useful information you have gathered over the years, however I understand why you might feel it is time to re-consider especially given your other commitments with your new job etc. and I take your point that a site can soon become redundant unless it is updated regularly. Is there any way I wonder if CILIP and the SLG might incorporate it into their pages on the CILIP website? In fact the SLG national committee were discussing their web presence this week , particularly in the light of the new YLG blog. The issue obviously would be who would develop and keep updated all the information you have already gathered and without any paid staff this would undoubtedly be an issue. Perhaps then the SLA might see fit to incorporate it into their site as they do have paid staff?Whatever you decide Anne many thanks for having set it up and given us access to your wealth of knowledge.
Hi Anne,
yes, this site is good and has been very useful to other school librarians in the past. I think it’s safe to say that you have achieved what you set out to do and nobody can take that away from you.
I would suggest that you think about what your needs are now and whether you need to keep the site as part of what you do. Do you WANT to keep it or would you rather that somebody else takes it over? In that case, I would ask SLA/SLG as Laura suggested.
I know you’ll do the right thing. If you decide to take the site off, make sure you tell us please so that we can quickly print everyting off in proper pupil fashion…
Annike
Hi Anne
Thank you for sharing your expertise with us all. I personally have found the site invaluable and was on it only this week. I can perfectly understand that your priorities have changed and why you feel that it may be time to pass the baton. As you say, the technology has changed and another way of presenting the content may be more easily updated. The content is still valid though. I too would like to encourage the SLA to provide more practical resources, so lobbying for them to perhaps take the content and put it on their website is the way to go. Many thanks once again for providing us all with such a great source of information.
Susan
Thanks Laura, Annike and Susan for your very helpful comments. I have taken down the site temporarily and put on a page that will re-direct visitors to this blog to see if anyone else leaves comments. I have until the end of December to decide what to do.
The pages are still there, just not accessible for the time being. I may add the links to delicious or another social bookmarking site so that I can add things more easily.
If I decide to stop, then I will almost certainly offer the information to the SLA or SLG – I just need a bit longer to think about it. I can add the personal stuff to this blog, although I don’t think that many people read it! Maybe, I could post more useful stuff here if I wasn’t feeling that I should devote more time to Strongest Links. I like the immediacy of a blog…
Anne
After 20 years as a chartered librarian, working in local or national government, I have just started my first ’solo’ job in a secondary school. It’s a completely new experience for me not to have immediate colleagues to point me in the right direction and ease me into my new role.
I stumbled across your site when I was researching for my interview in July and I am finding it invaluable! I was just about to use one of the links you’ve listed to plan an information literacy session I’m leading with new Y12s this week and am gutted that it isn’t there at the moment! (I think I wrote it down somewhere too…)
I feel like I’ve been thrown in at the deep-end and I need all the help and support I can get – your website is certainly a large part of it at the moment! It’s exciting that school has such high expectations of me, but I am daunted by the need to be fully operational and innovative – no period of grace here!
I can understand your need to reconsider your career priorities – after all, reconsidering mine was what led me to jumping out of a job I knew well into ‘unknown territory’ in order to challenge and develop my career.
I’ll miss your site if it does disappear for good, but maybe I need to get the hang of all this web 2.0 stuff in order to network (I’ve never felt like such a dinosaur!)
Thanks for your help thus far…
Anne,
I shall be very sorry to see Strongest Links disappear, I have found it invaluable both as a mature student and now in my first professional job but I understand your reasons and you achieved your objectives.
I agree that the content should be taken over by SLA as this sort of information is a vital link in our jobs. Although SLA have improved their site, it covers so much and it is not as focussed and I would certainly regret losing those organised links.
Technology is changing so I’m sure there will be a way to share and use our knowledge.
Thank you for all your hard work
Jenny
Anne,
Thank you for all your hard work and support, not only for UK but all librarians in schools. I think that it is a site exemplar, demonstrating how libraries and technology belong together and for that reason, will be sorry to see its demise, however I understand where you are coming from.
I link to this site and refer from time to time. I know Links are often transitory and that newer material is not being added, but there is a lot of gold in your site. I wonder if it could be left up for a certain length of time, allowing people open access to material in that time?
Jan, not at Delany
I will put the site back soon and it will run until the end of December at least. I am also looking at social bookmarking sites so that I can more easily add links. As I already use delicious for work, I think that I will use something different for Strongest Links. Then I will add all of the existing links and add in new ones as I find them.
If I decide to offer the site to someone else, I will let you all know.
Anne
Hi Anne
I too have just stumbled across this site, via the school libraries summit resource list on the CILIP site. In my previous incarnation as a children’s librarian in public libraries much of this would have been useful. Perhaps CILIP ought to be a bit more proactive in providing links to useful resources such as this. I like the idea of a site without an agenda other than to share information and (hopefully) good practice. As a relative newcomer to librarianship I feel that the profession is becoming so obsessed with looking forward that I sometimes find it difficult to access the body of existing knowledge. As school libraries often lack the support network of other organisations sites like this can be invaluable.
I hope you find some way of keeping it going.
Hi Anne,
The site is brilliant, it brings together so much useful stuff. I am trying to get a job in school librarianship after years of being a full-time mother, and it is so easy to find what I need here. I would hate to lose what currently exists even if no more new things were added.
Thanks for everything and good luck for the future.
Jackie
I am a librarian in a School Library Service and use your site occasionally. I found it especially useful for your list of School Library Services around the country and couldn’t get at it today. Hopefully school librarians also found it invaluable as a way of contacting their local SLS.
I’ve used your site loads of times and though I belong to other sites I love the fact I don’t need to find my password. I think you filled a need brilliantly.I respect that may be the next generation need to move it on.I never the used the wiki out of ignorance, but I would like an easy way to share resources.Cilip ought to be doing this rather than expecting one individual to give so much time.
I am an Assistant Librarian in a British School in Ghana and a Library and Information Science student at the University of Ghana. i did watch a 15 minute video on Teachers Tv and saw you talking about the resources on your web site(strongest Link ) . i quickly logged on there only to find out that the page is down!! . Oh mine! Can you please get back to it OR please send me some of the links through my mail.
We the young librarians coming up have a great lot to learn from you.
Please i realy need your support in my new appointment. i want to bring a change in how the library is set up (ie. displays) and the various activities and lessons i can undertake with the puoils Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 .
Please help.
Bravo ! more grease to your elbow.
I just want to add that I am one of the people at CILIP who points school librarians to Anne’s ‘Strongest Link’ site for valuable information from an experienced practitioner and I have never had anyone come back to me to say it was not useful. So I view this as a great resource for all in this sector and would be sad to see it go. The problem is time and resources which is as relevant at CILIP as it is for Anne. We no longer have sectoral advisors and the Information and Advice Team who help members with enquiries is now very small so we value those out in the field who are happy to share their wealth of knowledge to others.
If you can, Anne, do find a way to keep this on in some form, you ARE appreciated!
Hilary
CILIP Information & Advice Team
Just in case any of you are wondering what is going to happen to Strongest Links. I am now in discussions with the SLA about handing over most of the site to them. I will transfer the personal stuff on to this blog and also probably put most of the links on to a social bookmarking site for my own use, which I can then also link to from the blog.
I will put the site back asap, but I am having some issues with my home PC – I may get around to sorting it over the weekend. The site will then be available until around the end of December.
I am having so much fun with my new school site and I would much rather concentrate on that now. I am glad that so many people seem to have appreciated Strongest Links and have found it useful. But it is so laborious to keep it up-to-date as I have to do it at home.
And anyone who knows me will be aware of my manic home circumstances!