>> What about naming the server so that users
>> would know what it did from the name?

I would actually go one step further and say that our goal should be to diminish the importance of server names altogether.

The only name I would want our users (i.e., students and faculty) to know would be 'library.csusm.edu'.  From there, they might need to navigate to different systems and services, but that should be as transparent as possible.  If end-users are looking at hostnames to get a sense of what that server is doing, you're in trouble.

At San Marcos, we have servers by the name of sfx, metalib, illiad, eres, ezproxy, etc., but we don't refer to those systems by those names on the site.  In fact, we try not to give our systems any names at all.  We try to focus on labels and terminology related to the tasks and content people are looking for, and push users to those systems based on their selections.

In my time there, we took measures to ensure that all of these systems and services had the same navigation and design so that, as people moved from system to system, they would hopefully not even realized that they were no longer on the same site.  At that point, the server name becomes irrelevant.  As we move more into using APIs, that will be even more of a reality.

--Dave


-------------------
David Walker
Library Web Services Manager
California State University
http://xerxes.calstate.edu

________________________________

From: Code for Libraries on behalf of Richmond,Ian
Sent: Fri 10/27/2006 8:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Server names at libraries



It crosses my mind that most of server names mentioned so far are like
modern art, where x artist is responding to y school neither of whom
have ever been seen by anyone outside NYC.  You have to be in the know
for it to make sense.

  What about naming the server so that users would know what it did from
the name?  We used to have a library web server named libweb, which I
always liked, as it sort of made sense to people.  Now all our new ones
are named after periodic elements.  Not being a chemistry major, I still
have to think twice which one is radon and which strontium etc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Tim Spalding
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 10:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Server names at libraries

Our severs are all Greek gods-Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Athena. Zeus is the
master, of course. I didn't decide on Athena's name, or I would have
made it Artemis.

For a storage server I inflicted LibraryThing's employees with the
greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, a pronunciation disaster. (You'd
think people would know from mnemonic, but even the dictionary tells
people to pronounce that as if it started with n.) Mnemosyne had her
revenge, however, since it's now completely broken.