Websites

Although websites might seem outdated as an internet strategy, they continue to play an important role for most organizations and individual entrepreneurs. The biggest advantage of a website is its ability to house and accumulate materials, which can then be made available to potential customers or constituencies. Additionally, websites make a vast amount of information is readily available to users and can be organized in such a way that the information is easy to access quickly.

National and international organizations such as Zambia’s ZRA or global services such as Worldcat, Archive.org, and WHO maintain websites which give users access to their information, resource materials, and services. These could not be adequately handled via a platform like Facebook or Twitter, nor could an internet platform such as Whatsapp fulfill their purposes. On the other hand, a conventional internet webpage provides a perfectly suited platform. Through a skilled design of pulldown menus, mass storage locations, and automated computer scripts, websites can store, manage and deliver materials (documents, etc.), deliver information (through specific webpages), and facilitate processes such as the collection of data. Note the WHO website below and its utilization of pulldown menus and expandable links (show by the plus sign). Websites can also be relatively simple, even as small as one page. The nature of website construction lends itself to slow expansion over a long period of time. So, an organization can begin with a very simple website design and gradually add to it over time. If materials are stored in a systematic way, the front page of the website can be adapted as needed to access the expanding quantity of information and materials. Lastly, websites can facilitate both the collection and the distribution of materials and content. Worldcat is a good example. This website it constructed in such a way that numerous contributing libraries add their own content, but the composite content is then available as a whole. In effect, the creators of the web service have enlisted help from libraries around the world to help them build the bibliographic database by contributing their entries.