Decentralizing Your Website

LibGuides as a Web Development Tool

Steve Bahnaman - NC Weslyan CollegeSteve Osler - Central Piedmont CC

The Problem: A Disconnect

IT Departments and Libraries have different priorities when it comes to maintaining and updating a website. 

Libraries• Maximum access

• Dynamic, lively, and inviting• Usable

• Works on and off campus

Practically, this leads to sites with proxies, widgets, news feeds, and lots of articulation with various online resources.

IT Departments• Secure• Stable

• Low-maintenance• More technical design

Because IT deals with problems when they occur, they are more likely to design to avoid problems.

The Problem: Continued

Because they are susceptible to the same stereotypes as other people are, your IT department may assume that the #1 priority of the library is stability and security as well.

Unless your library has its own IT department, campus IT lacks a vested interest in a dynamic library web presence. They will also never see your library site as critical to their mission.

Goals

• Allow librarians to create web content quickly, with professional looking, consistent results.

• Increase outreach to college departments by offering them individualized web pages.

• Create a dynamic web presence that doesn’t require so much detailed updating every time something changes.

Websites

• CPCC: Content Management System (Plone)o Updating content is cumbersomeo Limited to standard HTMLo Giving librarians rights to create new pages is

problematic

• NCWC: Drupal-based CMS with homemade editor

• Updating content is WYSIWYG but tricky and quirky• Many rules are set by IT and marketers• Librarians cannot edit the widget-and-box-heavy

homepage, only the sub-pages

Enter LibGuides

• A content-management service designed to allow libraries to make subject- and course-specific guides easily and quickly.

• A sharing platform designed to become more and more streamlined as it grows.

• An easy way to incorporate the array of 2.0 tools.

Working Smarter, Not Harder

• LibGuides consists of different types of content. o Pageso Boxeso Links

• Any of these can be reused over and over again across the system.

Types of Content

Types of Content

Types of Content

Working Smarter, Not Harder!

Facilitate SpeedBrowser Plugin

Link Checker

Database Import Tool

Facilitate Sharing

• CPCC has a few guides that exist only to house shared content.o Database Linkso Database and Catalog Search Boxeso Libraryh3lp Chat Widgeto Video Tutorials

• These can be used the way that many libraries use a shared drive or an intranet…except they can be reused even more easily!

Facilitate Sharing

• Widgets showing new guides

Our Reusable Content

Our Reusable Content

Database List and Subjects

Our Reusable Content

Cross-Sharing

• LibGuides enables users to choose other libraries’ guides as a template for starting their own.

• This is voluntary, but is seen as central to the idea of LibGuides as a sharing tool.

• You were probably doing this anyway.

A 2.0 Toolbox

• Most of the things libraries want to do with Web 2.0 are pretty simple in principle:– Share more in places where patrons already are

– Make design more dynamic at point of need

• LibGuides facilitates this too, largely through the use of widgets.

• LibGuides also has great stats-tracking.

Uses So Far

• Traditional Research Guides• Class guides for in-person and online only

classes• Basic Skills Guide (For GED Students)

o Links to Kahn Academy Exercises

• Databases interface• Faculty Workshops and possibly some

institutional digital repository functions• Any time we find the need to make a site more

dynamic, or where the links change frequently

Potential Drawbacks

• NCWC has a heavily “split site” now; search boxes etc. don’t always share content.

• A bit “uglier” than some web developers might like.

• Difficult to ensure uniformity since so many people create pages.

This was not a LibGuides Commercial

Questions and Comments

• What have your web/LibGuides experiences taught you?

• What questions do you have for us?