I suspect at some point every student needs to use resources from the Library. therefore making the library central to campus and education.

There is a link to our library site on the main campus site home page, along with the links Apply Online, Visit, Faculty Portal, Alumni, Parents and Family, Employment, Bookstore, and others.  If I recall correctly, we had to go through a similar process in the late 90s or sometime pre 2005 to get a permanent link on the Unviersity home page.  As someone already mentioned, find example academic site pages that link to their library, academic sites similar to your institution.

Also if you are a state academic site then your site should be available to the public, where your finances come from.

Thomas



====================================================
Support Request                http://portal.support.appstate.edu                                      
====================================================
Thomas McMillan Grant Bennett           Appalachian State University
Operations & Systems Analyst            P O Box 32026
University Library                                Boone, North Carolina 28608
(828) 262 6587
Library Systems                              http://www.library.appstate.edu
====================================================

Confidentiality Notice:
This communication constitutes an electronic communication within the meaning of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 2510, and its disclosure is strictly limited to the recipient intended by the sender of this message.  If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.  Please contact this office immediately by return e-mail or at 828-262-6587, and destroy the original transmission and its attachment(s), if any, if you are not the intended recipient.

On Dec 17, 2013, at 9:40 AM, Matthew Sherman wrote:

> Hi Code4Libbers,
> 
> Slightly odd question for you academic library folks.  Why does your
> library have its website where it is on the university site?  For context,
> the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the
> campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to
> even see the search page.  This was a decision by the previous director who
> was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a
> terrible setup.  So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give
> us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us
> to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did.  All
> thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our
> thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make.  Thanks
> everyone and have a good week.
> 
> Matt Sherman