the power of libguides: an introduction
TRANSCRIPT
The Power of LibGuides: An
Introduction
Michael Johnson, MLS
Circulation Librarian, Shawnee State University
March, 26th 2012
What we will cover in the
next hour
What is a content management system?
And why is it better then XHTML with CSS websites?
Decisions that should be made before the first
guide is created
Color, format, fonts, etc…
How to make big changes to the entire site
How to best use this service
In the past we only had
static webpages
A static website is one that just uses XHTML and CSS to create a series of linking webpages
Example of one that I made: http://www.wrightedgesolutions.com/
Pros
Code is easy to update
Works well for a small website (less then 10 pages)
Cons
Can lead to sprawl
Really hard to update universal parts
No permission settings
What is a content
management
system(CMS)?
Uses a database to manage content
Instead of 100 identical boxes existing in 100 places, there is one box being mirrored in 100 places
Update the 1 box all the reflections are updated with it instantly
Users only have access to the parts of the page they need access to
Bob can’t delete Tim’s box or page by accident
Examples of CMSs
WordPress, Drupal, Joomla
Why use LibGuides as a
CMS?
It’s a shelf ready product
No need to do coding to set it up or mess around
the back end
It’s designed with librarians and library patrons in
mind
Don’t have to worry about data storage
Spring Share have great support
Once the site is set up easy to train librarians how to create and add content
Before Starting: Think of the
User
Users like a universal feel to things
Church always feels like a church
McDonalds always feels like a McDonalds
Think of the User
Who are your users?
What do they expect?
What do they need to learn?
Less is usually more
Not always true but in the web world less is more
Before Starting: General
Theme
Layout
Column sizes
Banners
Colors
Backgrounds (main area, inside content)
Unused Links, Used Links, Text
Headers
Help use Adobe Kuler
Fonts
For the headers
For the Box Titles, for Text
Before Starting: Fine Tuning How much content?
To a box
To a page
To a guide
Content organization?
How many links to a link box?
Shotgun or scalpel?
What kind of boxes should go into the template?
What is the definition of a commonly used box?
Textual uniformity
When to ampersand
Macro Changes
What is a macro change
All the banners to the site
The background color to the entire site
The tab color
The default text font for the entire site
Limitations
CSS is reverse recursive
So if someone has applied their own
formatting, such as a font, then the macro change
won’t affect it
Macro Changes
Lets take a look
Best Uses: Responsibilities
Decide which librarians are in charge of which guides
Subject areas, expertise, interest
Have at least one person review before
publishing
Choose one person to review guides for links and
boxes that should be moved into the template
Only give super user status to the people that
need it
Content management systems are not forgiving
Best Uses: The First Guides
A to Z Research Guides
Map all the links out of here
That way if the link changes or if the subscription is canceled it will be easy to change across the whole guide
All Research Guides
Use the the A to Z list to pull all links
Allows for several organizations of the same information
Guide Template
Hours and other general information boxes
Best Uses: Demonstrations
Lets take a look:
http://sandbox.campusguides.com/all-guides
