We soon realised we wouldn't be able to cope with this potentially huge task on our own and at the same time, we saw other institutions developing similar guides. We suggested a national collaborative project with other interested research libraries which was quite successful, but even with the commitment of seven university libraries, we realised DutchESS could never scale up as an academic subject guide of the Internet. Combining both approaches might also provide a successful formula. Renardus, in a way, is the result of all these shared experiences. It provides the means to work out collaborative approaches.
Collaboration is the key word.
It is tremendously powerful for addressing the new challenges introduced by the Internet. This is particularly true for visible results such as prototypes, demonstrators and pilots. On the other hand, even if there's a need at some stage to re-design, the original concept will have developed into a more mature and shared view. This in turn provides a stronger basis for future developments. So whilst it's tempting to measure success on the basis of visible and tangible results, I prefer to look at it in terms of impact on future developments.