Minutes from COSELL Roundtable Discussion on Web Development Thursday, April 19, 2001 5:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Approximately 12 people attended the roundtable. The discussion began with each participant identifying themselves and their home institution. There were no predetermined topics, but participants were especially encouraged to raise any topics that might be potential program proposals by COSELL for the next SEAALL conference.

A discussion was held on who the webmaster in school was and whether it was a full-time job. In several of the schools, the webmaster had dual roles and acted as a bridge between the law school and law library. The question was raised about whether the position was in technical services or public services. In addition, the questions surrounding the cataloging of Web resources was raised.

The use of databases and software such as Cold Fusion was raised, but few of the libraries have reached the point in their development where this is warranted.

The group discussed some of the issues surrounding the problems encountered where libraries have assumed responsibility for faculty websites. One library has been creating HTML pages for each of their school's classes, but this ultimately required the addition of a positions to provide the infrastructure and technical support. One school is beginning to use Blackboard software to create faculty class pages and interest in the software was expressed by several other schools. The question of creating faculty personal pages was also raised.

A question was raised regarding choice of HTML tools and editors. The schools represented use a variety of software for this purpose, including Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Netscape Composer, Homesite, and Pico.

None of the law schools have set up a MyLibrary type of front Portal although several schools had considered it.