>I am curious about how different museums have taken to the path of
>providing a web site, specifically how much are we talking about laying
>out in terms of equipment, software, image production, and internet
>providers.  Any postings would be appreciated.

Depends.  A simple two or three page site can be set up in an afternoon
(with a bit of handholding from someone with experience) and hosted on a
commercial dial in site for $20/month.

It goes up from there, depending on the staff time which goes into it.  It
seems to take us more than an hour per page to do authoring, including
image manipulations.  We have a very good volunteer doing custom graphics.


We just put in a direct Internet connection at 56K.  Our budget for one
year is $15,000 (courtesy of an anonymous foundation and some helpful
trustees).  $7,200 of that is for Internet access and phone company
charges.  The rest bought a new server ($3,000), a router ($1,500), some
extra software, and some consulting time. I expect to have money left over.
We have one person half time (more or less) on the project.  The virtue of
the direct connection in our case is access to the net from our museum
network and the ability to run custom CGIs on the server.

>>If you want your own server, with your own connection to the
>>backbone: count on a minimum of 50K for hardware and ancillaries, plus
>>a phone charge of minimum $1,500 a month, plus staff, talent and
>>energy costs related to your own learning curve.

There are lots of variables, but $50K is excesssive.

Here is a clip from another list:

>Basically I need some benchmarks, if anybody knows, on how much is charged
>for a job like this and how much a provider charges to let a commercial
>source reside on the server.

Happens I've been doing some research in this area. Here's one data point.
This provider of presence, web storage, design, consulting, updating ser-
vice, etc. gives detailed examples of their cost structure on their web page.

 - http://www.empire.net/   Empire.Net, Inc.
 - They're full-service only: design, implement, host. After initial setup,
   extra maintenance and changes are billed at $60/hr. Setup Prices in the
   three ranges are negotiable.
   o Small Web Tree: Couple of mostly text information pages, no forms,
     < 15k accesses/Mo.: ~$350.00+ setup fee, $75.00/Mo. flat fee to keep
     your web tree available on the net.
   o Medium Web Tree: Several pages, simple feedback form, graphics buttons
     with hypertext links. $1800-3500.00+ setup fee, $150/Mo. for first 10k
     block of accesses, $50/5k block/Mo. above the first 10k block of accesses.
   o Large Web Tree: Complicated, large amounts of graphics, text. extensive
     forms and/or custom scripts: $3500-5000.00+ setup fee, $500 for up to 10k
     accesses, $250/10k block/Mo. above the first 10k block of accesses.

I found them (and hundreds of others) at <http://www.thelist.com/>.

______________________________________________________
Keith Dawson   [log in to unmask]   [log in to unmask]
Layer of ash separates morning and evening milk.

Guy S. Hermann   |  Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc.  |  203-572-5392
[log in to unmask]   |  http://www.mystic.org/       |  Mystic, CT  USA