You guys are awesome, this is great stuff, really helpful. My impression of libguides has been fairly negative for many of the reasons mentioned, but Sean has a good point about content strategy and training, and Wilhemina has a good point about the costs of open source not always being appreciated.
Has anyone tried the two platforms Andrew Darby mentioned, SubjectsPlus and Library a la Carte? That's the sort of thing I've been looking for but never found until now. Dave On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Sean Hannan <shan...@jhu.edu> wrote: > Again, this not a technical issue. It's a content strategy issue. > > Believe me, I was where you were. I was using all kinds of javascript and > CSS hacks to try to prevent people from getting creative with color. I was > getting to the point of setting up Capybara tests to run against the guides > to alert me to abusive uses of bold and italics. > > The folks creating guides are content people, not web people. Take the web > out of it. Focus on the content. Pick a couple heuristics to educate them > on > (we picked 7 +/- 2, above the fold/below the fold, and F-shaped reading > patterns). Above all, show them statistics. And not the built-in LibGuides > stats, either. > > New vs. returning. Average time on page. Pageviews over the course of a > year. Very, very, very quickly our librarians realized what content is > important, what content is superfluous, and that the time the spend > carefully manicuring and maintaining their guides would (and could) be > better spent elsewhere. > > -Sean > > On 8/12/13 9:35 AM, "Joshua Welker" <wel...@ucmo.edu> wrote: > > > I just have to say I have been thinking the exact same thing about > LibGuides > > for the two years I've been using it. I feel vindicated knowing others > feel > > the same way. > > > > At UCMO, we will be migrating to Drupal in the next several months, and > I am > > hoping very much that I can convince people to use less LibGuides. > > > > LibGuides is great in its ease of use, but fails on just about every > design > > principle I can think of. There have been several studies on "tab > blindness" > > in LibGuides, and don't get me started on the sub-tab links that are > hiding > > and require the user to mouse over a tab to even see what is there. I've > > tried telling people so many times to have just a few tabs and always to > use > > a table of contents for the main page, but they rarely do. And it becomes > > just about impossible to have a consistent look and feel across your > website > > when LibGuides allows guide creators to modify every element on the page > as > > they see fit. People will do crazy things like putting page content in a > > sidebar element, something you'd never ever ever see on any website on > the > > Internet. I tried to enforce uniform colors and column sizes across all > the > > guides, but I was told to let it go because my coworkers wanted to be > able > > to decide those things on a guide-by-guide basis. > > > > I've worked at two institutions that use LibGuides, and what inevitably > > happens is that librarians create one Uber Guide for entire subject areas > > (biology, religion, etc) and then create sub-pages for all the dozens of > > specific disciplines within those subject areas. And then, assuming the > user > > somehow manages to find these pages, they are typically not much more > than a > > list of links that could have easily been included on the main library > > website. > > > > Okay, sorry for the rant. It has been building up for several years and > > never had a chance to voice out. > > > > Josh Welker > > Information Technology Librarian > > James C. Kirkpatrick Library > > University of Central Missouri > > Warrensburg, MO 64093 > > JCKL 2260 > > 660.543.8022 > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of > > Robert Sebek > > Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2013 11:21 AM > > To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU > > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it > > > > On Sun, Aug 11, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Heather Rayl <23e...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> I have to say that I loathe LibGuides. My library makes extensive use > >> of them, too. Need a web solution? The first thing out of someone's > >> mouth is "Let's put it in a LibGuide!" > >> > >> Shudder > >> > >> This fall, I'll be moving our main site over to Drupal, and I'm hoping > >> that eventually I can convince people to re-invent their LibGuides > >> there. I can use the "saving money" card, and the "content silos are > >> bad" card and > >> *maybe* I will be successful. > >> > >> Anyone fought this particular battle before? > >> > >> ~heather > >> > >> I'm fighting that battle right now. We have an excellent CMS into > >> which I > > have set up all our database URLs, descriptions, etc.Anytime we need to > > refer to a database on a page, we use one of those entries. That database > > just changed platforms? No problem. I change the URL in one place and > > everything automatically updates (hooray CMSs!). > > > > All of our subject guides (http://www.lib.vt.edu/subject-guides/) are > in the > > CMS using the exact same database entries. I converted from our failing, > > home-grown system into the CMS and then gave training on how to maintain > > from there (remove an entry, add an entry, create a parallel course > > guide)--using the same skills as maintaining any other web page that > > librarian is responsible for. But apparently that's too hard. > > > > So we have a trial of LibGuides. NO ONE here has created a guide from > > scratch yet, but they all say this is going to be easy. No one will > admit > > that someone will have to recreate all those database entries (literally > > hundreds) and then maintain those entries. When presented with this, > several > > librarians said--oh that won't be necessary, we'll just create individual > > entries as needed on individual guides. WHAT?! > > > > If implemented, we'll have hundreds and hundreds of entries, any of which > > could be out of date and nonfunctional, with no easy way to find and fix, > > other than waiting for patrons to complain that the link doesn't work. > Ugh. > > All for several thousand dollar a year (as opposed for free in the CMS). > > > > And yes, those librarians' favorite example libguides have a dozen tabs > with > > hundreds of links on each tab. Overwhelm the patron with links--who > cares! > > Just let me recreate the Yahoo Directory I so miss with every possible > > resource I can find online. Half those links don't work next semester? > > Doesn't matter, as no one will ever maintain that page again (and no > patron > > will use it, since they will just Google these resources anyway). > > > > > > > > -- > > Robert Sebek > > Webmaster, Virginia Tech Libraries > > (http://www.lib.vt.edu/) >