1. The Power of LibGuides: Using the
Interface and Creating Content
Michael Johnson, MLS
Circulation Librarian, Shawnee State University
April, 23rd 2012

2. What we will cover in the
next hour
 Quick review of the last class
 The main page options
 Creating a new research guide
 Creating pages and ordering them
 Creating content boxes and content
 The limitations of a WYSIWYG
 Gathering statistics from libguides

3. Review
 LibGuides is a content management system
 Easy to share or aggregate information
 Can set up permissions
 Choices to made before you start
 Color, language, formatting etc…
 Best practices aka Think of the User
 Use the system to save time
 Users want less not more
 Run a user analysis

4. Main/Home/Dashboard
options

5. Creating a new research
guide: Before Clicking
 Start on paper
 Pencil and paper are easy to erase and move
around
 This saves time
 Making a blueprint
 Not for every bit of content
 Big parts
 How many tabs
 Major boxes
 Like a blue print this will change

6. Creating a new research
guide: Lets take a tour

7. Creating a new research
guide: Lets take a tour

8. Creating a new research
guide: Lets take a tour
 Add a page
 Adding a tap
 Reorder/move pages
 Reorder boxes
 Resize columns
 Delete a page
 This can’t be undone

9. Creating a new research
guide: WARNING
 Don’t create subpages under the tabs
 Hard to use on Mobile
 The drop down menus that appear under the tabs
are confusing
 Users don’t like them
 Instead create a new guide with the headers
being the drop down menu
 Link back with a related guides box at the bottom

10. Creating a new site: Lets
move some stuff around
 Lets take a look at the practice cyber bulling
guide I made:
http://sandbox.campusguides.com/cyber-
bullying
 We will go over content types in a bit

11. What’s in a box: Types of
content
 Rich Text/Dynamic Content/Scripts
 This is the most versatile box
 Allows for HTML and embedding
 Link Boxes
 This is you want to make a list of links
 I like Links & Lists
 Multimedia Boxes
 Use it only for RSS Feeds and Books from Catalog
 Everything else can be done in Rich Text better

12. What’s in a box: Types of
content pt. 2
 User Input Boxes
 Don’t use them
 Miscellaneous Boxes
 Dates and events is useful
 Google Boxes
 Aren’t we trying to show other sources then Google?
 Play Around
 Explore and learn the options

13. The power of lists
 Lists are very useful
 Databases
 Similar resources
 Providing out going links
 Descriptive Text
 At the top there is room to write
 Users like lists
 Short and related material
 Non-Link list
 Use Rich Text

14. Lets make a link list together

15. Rich text box: WYSIWYG
 Stands for “What you see is what you get”
 Allows for a graphical system to interact with
XHTML and CSS
 Like Microsoft word for a website
 Pros
 Interacting in a way that your used to
 Short learning time, almost “natural”
 Cons
 Not versatile
 Can fight you

16. Rich text box introduction

17. Getting statistics
 We live in a quantitative world
 LibGuide Statistics can be another statistic that
can show library usage
 First are statistics for all the guides
 Then statistics for an individual page

18. Getting statistics: The
entrance

19. Getting statistics: All the my
guides

20. Getting statistics: A certain
guide

21. Thank you! Questions?
 Email: mjohnson2@shawnee.edu
 Twitter: @mwjthelibrarian
 April 23 2012