UL LibGuides
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The library migrated their subject guides from old portals to LibGuides over 6 months with help from a co-op student. They developed guides for every academic department with common front pages and tabs. This improved the online presence of subject librarians. They have continued maintaining and expanding the guides with the co-op student's manual. The migration to LibGuides 2 was done following Springshare's guidelines to retain customizations. Database assets now simplify updating the A-Z list across guides. Overall, LibGuides 2 is easier to maintain though customization options are more limited than previously.
UL LibGuides
- 1. UL’s experience of creating & migrating LibGuides Anne McMahon E-Resources & Web Services Librarian Glucksman Library, University of Limerick
- 2. What we had before LibGuides … • Old Subject portals Varying in quality & coverage Only three of four faculties covered Difficult for faculty Librarians to update • A separate ‘Faculty Librarians’ page
- 3. June 2014 Start of Project • Employed a co-op (work experience) student full-time for 6 months – Law Plus background allowed us to prioritise Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences guides – An interest in a career in librarianship – The co-op student worked with the 5 faculty librarians on developing content for LibGuides • Digital & Technical Services did the back end work – Customised system settings and look & feel – Created an comprehensive A-Z database Guide
- 4. Agreed to a common front page for subject guides…
- 5. and 4 common tabs to open …
- 7. Most significant achievement(s) • We now have a guide for every one of our 27 academic departments • Co-op student worked with each Librarian to input their content • Every faculty librarian and every faculty engaged in the process • Our Librarian for Research Services & Bibliometrics created a very comprehensive research guide which is one of our most popular and heavily used Guide • LibGuides has helped Faculty Librarians improve their online presence
- 8. Ongoing • Co-Op student created a manual for our librarians based on her experiences (she’s now updating the manual for LibGuides 2) • Working with the Info Services senior library assistant for 2 hours per week to keep continuity and build up in-house expertise • Other guides in development e.g. Collection Development Policies, Academic Literacies, Information Literacy ….
- 9. Outreach to the university … Head of Information Services gave a presentation to the Library Information Resources Development Committee (chaired by VP Research & including faculty and student representatives) very enthusiastic reception agreed to help us with a launch and general promotion
- 10. Migration to LibGuides 2 Reasons for Migrating •Faculty Librarians wanted to do some more customisation on guides •You lose some customisation when you migrate – e.g. tab and box colour choices – Custom Header & Footers – Existing Banners •Made more sense to do the changes in LibGuides 2
- 11. Migration to LibGuides 2 • Springshare give step by step guidelines • They also provide a detailed online tutorial
- 12. Migration to LibGuides 2
- 13. A-Z of databases • We use to manually update our database details, adding them to an A-Z, subject guides, subject lists.
- 14. A-Z of databases
- 15. A-Z of databases
- 18. Final Thoughts on Migration • LibGuides 2 is easy to update • Springshare provides very good online support • Database Assets are a great help • However default look & feel is limited in terms of customisation, if you do not want to edit the CSS behind the guides