Re: [CODE4LIB] Subject guide policies (was [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it)
At Ithaca College, the web team has recently written some very loose guidelines on the construction of subject guides. Generally, we stayed away from saying much about content, so most of the rules apply to the presence and placement of certain common structural elements. For example, there should always be contact information for the librarian and this should always be in the top right. There should be table of contents (unless the guide is really short) and it should be located at the top of the main column. There are also some rules that are intended to prevent responsivity problems (e.g., wrap your embedded videos in a div class=fitvidhttp://fitvidsjs.com/ to make sure they are usable on mobile devices). In order to keep a reasonable content hierarchy, we ask that librarians use only h3 or lower for internal headers. We've specified what we call a dashboard widget that contains links to, well, things that are often linked to from subject guides (e.g., ILL, citation info). This element is required on all guides. Regarding buy-in, we stressed that these rules were based on responses from actual users in usability tests. This is convincing to most (not all) librarians. Our usability tests showed that consistency across guides is important to users. We presented the rules as representing a balance between pedagogical freedom for librarians and the need for consistency and ease of navigation for users. (A paper on this is currently under review.) Enforcement has not been a major issue. Content-creators have been *cough* we use tasers *cough* very cooperative. Ron Gilmour Web Services Librarian Ithaca College Library On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote: One of the recurring themes in the LibGuides thread was that libraries need better policies regarding content and style management in guides. I wholeheartedly agree here, but my attempts to do so in the past were shot down in favor of giving all librarians maximum freedom. I have two questions: 1) What kind of policies do you all have in place for subject guide style and content management? 2) How do you get librarians to buy in to the policies, and how are they enforced? 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 Jimmy Ghaphery Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 5:49 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it I have followed this thread with great interest. In 2011 Erin White and I researched many of the issues the group has been hitting on, demonstrating the popularity of LibGuides in ARL libraries, the locus of control outside of systems' departments, and the state of content policies.[1] Our most challenging statement in the article to the library tech community (which was watered down a bit in the peer review process) was The popularity of LibGuides, at its heart a specialized content management system, also calls into question the vitality and/or adaptability of local content management system implementations in libraries. One of the biggest challenges I see toward creating a non-commercial alternative is that the library code community is so dispersed in the various institutions that it makes it difficult to get away from the download tar.gz model. Are our institutions ready to collaborate across themselves such that there could be a shared SaaS model (of anything really) that libraries could subscribe/contribute to? The barriers here certainly aren't technological, but more along the lines of policy, governance, etc. As for Research Guides in general, I see a very clear divide in the public/tech communities not only on platform but more philosophical. From the tech side once it is all boiled down, heck why do you even need a third party system; catalog the databases with some type of local genres and push out an api/xml feeds to various disciplines. From the public side there is a long lineage of individually curated guides that goes to the core of value of professionally knowing one's community and serving it. [1] https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ital/article/view/1830 best, Jimmy On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Galen Charlton g...@esilibrary.com wrote: Hi, On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Wilhelmina Randtke rand...@gmail.com wrote: There's not a lock-in issue with LibGuides, because it's used to host pathfinders. Those are supposed to be periodically revisited. One of the big problems is that librarians will start a guide and never finish, or make one then never maintain it. Periodically deleting everything is a good thing for pathfinders and subject guides, and people should do it anyway. No one's talking about tools for digital archives, which have lock
Re: [CODE4LIB] Subject guide policies (was [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it)
Thanks.Do you have any guidelines around the numbers and colors of tabs? That is one of the big issues. Also, do you have rules around what is allowed in side columns? Josh Welker On Aug 14, 2013, at 9:33 AM, Ron Gilmour rgilmou...@gmail.com wrote: At Ithaca College, the web team has recently written some very loose guidelines on the construction of subject guides. Generally, we stayed away from saying much about content, so most of the rules apply to the presence and placement of certain common structural elements. For example, there should always be contact information for the librarian and this should always be in the top right. There should be table of contents (unless the guide is really short) and it should be located at the top of the main column. There are also some rules that are intended to prevent responsivity problems (e.g., wrap your embedded videos in a div class=fitvidhttp://fitvidsjs.com/ to make sure they are usable on mobile devices). In order to keep a reasonable content hierarchy, we ask that librarians use only h3 or lower for internal headers. We've specified what we call a dashboard widget that contains links to, well, things that are often linked to from subject guides (e.g., ILL, citation info). This element is required on all guides. Regarding buy-in, we stressed that these rules were based on responses from actual users in usability tests. This is convincing to most (not all) librarians. Our usability tests showed that consistency across guides is important to users. We presented the rules as representing a balance between pedagogical freedom for librarians and the need for consistency and ease of navigation for users. (A paper on this is currently under review.) Enforcement has not been a major issue. Content-creators have been *cough* we use tasers *cough* very cooperative. Ron Gilmour Web Services Librarian Ithaca College Library On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote: One of the recurring themes in the LibGuides thread was that libraries need better policies regarding content and style management in guides. I wholeheartedly agree here, but my attempts to do so in the past were shot down in favor of giving all librarians maximum freedom. I have two questions: 1) What kind of policies do you all have in place for subject guide style and content management? 2) How do you get librarians to buy in to the policies, and how are they enforced? 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 Jimmy Ghaphery Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 5:49 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it I have followed this thread with great interest. In 2011 Erin White and I researched many of the issues the group has been hitting on, demonstrating the popularity of LibGuides in ARL libraries, the locus of control outside of systems' departments, and the state of content policies.[1] Our most challenging statement in the article to the library tech community (which was watered down a bit in the peer review process) was The popularity of LibGuides, at its heart a specialized content management system, also calls into question the vitality and/or adaptability of local content management system implementations in libraries. One of the biggest challenges I see toward creating a non-commercial alternative is that the library code community is so dispersed in the various institutions that it makes it difficult to get away from the download tar.gz model. Are our institutions ready to collaborate across themselves such that there could be a shared SaaS model (of anything really) that libraries could subscribe/contribute to? The barriers here certainly aren't technological, but more along the lines of policy, governance, etc. As for Research Guides in general, I see a very clear divide in the public/tech communities not only on platform but more philosophical. From the tech side once it is all boiled down, heck why do you even need a third party system; catalog the databases with some type of local genres and push out an api/xml feeds to various disciplines. From the public side there is a long lineage of individually curated guides that goes to the core of value of professionally knowing one's community and serving it. [1] https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ital/article/view/1830 best, Jimmy On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Galen Charlton g...@esilibrary.com wrote: Hi, On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Wilhelmina Randtke rand...@gmail.com wrote: There's not a lock-in issue with LibGuides, because it's used to host pathfinders. Those are supposed to be periodically revisited. One of the big
Re: [CODE4LIB] Subject guide policies (was [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it)
We don't do tabs (we use SubjectsPlus, not Libguides). Our rules about side columns read as follows: Left Column should contain primary content. Right column should contain supplemental content including, but not limited to: - Dashboard (directly under subject specialist) - Other content may include Related guides, Selected journals / RSS, Associations, Help documents. Not very strict, since primary and supplemental are subjective. I've also had to remind that their right-column content will display below their left column content on a smaller screen. On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Josh Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote: Thanks.Do you have any guidelines around the numbers and colors of tabs? That is one of the big issues. Also, do you have rules around what is allowed in side columns? Josh Welker On Aug 14, 2013, at 9:33 AM, Ron Gilmour rgilmou...@gmail.com wrote: At Ithaca College, the web team has recently written some very loose guidelines on the construction of subject guides. Generally, we stayed away from saying much about content, so most of the rules apply to the presence and placement of certain common structural elements. For example, there should always be contact information for the librarian and this should always be in the top right. There should be table of contents (unless the guide is really short) and it should be located at the top of the main column. There are also some rules that are intended to prevent responsivity problems (e.g., wrap your embedded videos in a div class=fitvidhttp://fitvidsjs.com/ to make sure they are usable on mobile devices). In order to keep a reasonable content hierarchy, we ask that librarians use only h3 or lower for internal headers. We've specified what we call a dashboard widget that contains links to, well, things that are often linked to from subject guides (e.g., ILL, citation info). This element is required on all guides. Regarding buy-in, we stressed that these rules were based on responses from actual users in usability tests. This is convincing to most (not all) librarians. Our usability tests showed that consistency across guides is important to users. We presented the rules as representing a balance between pedagogical freedom for librarians and the need for consistency and ease of navigation for users. (A paper on this is currently under review.) Enforcement has not been a major issue. Content-creators have been *cough* we use tasers *cough* very cooperative. Ron Gilmour Web Services Librarian Ithaca College Library On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote: One of the recurring themes in the LibGuides thread was that libraries need better policies regarding content and style management in guides. I wholeheartedly agree here, but my attempts to do so in the past were shot down in favor of giving all librarians maximum freedom. I have two questions: 1) What kind of policies do you all have in place for subject guide style and content management? 2) How do you get librarians to buy in to the policies, and how are they enforced? 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 Jimmy Ghaphery Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 5:49 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it I have followed this thread with great interest. In 2011 Erin White and I researched many of the issues the group has been hitting on, demonstrating the popularity of LibGuides in ARL libraries, the locus of control outside of systems' departments, and the state of content policies.[1] Our most challenging statement in the article to the library tech community (which was watered down a bit in the peer review process) was The popularity of LibGuides, at its heart a specialized content management system, also calls into question the vitality and/or adaptability of local content management system implementations in libraries. One of the biggest challenges I see toward creating a non-commercial alternative is that the library code community is so dispersed in the various institutions that it makes it difficult to get away from the download tar.gz model. Are our institutions ready to collaborate across themselves such that there could be a shared SaaS model (of anything really) that libraries could subscribe/contribute to? The barriers here certainly aren't technological, but more along the lines of policy, governance, etc. As for Research Guides in general, I see a very clear divide in the public/tech communities not only on platform but more philosophical. From the tech side once it is all boiled down, heck why
