“The future depends on what you do today”: evolving subject support in UCD Library for a sustainable future
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University College Dublin (UCD) library website for many years supported its users by providing subject support to over 50 different disciplines, through the development of webpages containing subject lists of databases, useful websites and other related materials. These lists were created and using HTML and had to be individually maintained and developed. This presentation looks at what happened when UCD Library evaluated the effectiveness and sustainability of these resources and how Libguides were used to evolve and manage and extend subject support. This presentation will also look at how Libguides are being used to extend subject support beyond the library website and potential plans for further development.
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“The future depends on what you do today”: evolving subject support in UCD Library for a sustainable future
- 1. An Leabharlann, An Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Cliath 4 The Library, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 “The future depends on what you do today”: evolving subject support in UCD Library for a sustainable future Diarmuid Stokes HSLG 2015
- 2. Summary • How UCD Library subject support on the library website • How it evolved • How it changed • What replaced it
- 3. Annotated bibliographies of reference materials, Web sites, databases, and journals within a specific discipline (Reeb & Gibbons, 2004, p. 123) What are subject Portals “They are not designed to serve either the experienced scholar or the reference librarian. They are for beginners who seek instruction in gathering the fundamental literature of a field new to them in every respect”. (Stevens et al., 1973, p. 41)
- 4. 1997
- 5. 1999
- 6. 2003
- 7. 2008
- 8. Growth of UCD Subject Portals 1997-2008 1997 1999 2001 2003 2008
- 9. 2011 New Content Management System Change to Website support Model Evaluation of Website Content
- 10. The (unexpected) return of Subject portals Library Restructuring Information Literacy Model Subject Specific Guides
- 11. Why Subject portals again? But weren’t the figure low? Awareness Visibility Academic support Support for Multidisciplinary subjects One stop shop
- 12. Why Choose Libguides? Interface Add, Reuse, Share Embed Widgets in Libguides Libguides in….. Templates
- 13. How did we implement it? Pilot Programme Develop templates Add Content Promote Mainstreamed
- 14. Our Libguides
- 15. Where are we now 42 Subject guides, 9 Research guides Usage Feedback “Useful, pretty inclusive.” “it all seemed to be there” “covers everything you need” Libguide usage Sept 2014-May 2015 Map Collections at UCD and on the Web 15746 Your Library Information Skills 12284 EndNote 10136 GIS at UCD and on the Web 7779 Welcome New Students 7373 Theses Information 5812 English, Drama & Film 5190 Bibliometrics 4624 Research Data Management 3887 Library Staff Intranet (login required) 3571 Law 3494 Business 3226 Health & Wellbeing Collection 2402 Veterinary Medicine 2222 Agriculture & Food Science 2034 UCD Library Spotlight 1806 Languages, Literatures & Linguistics 1796 Geography 1723 ORCID 1714 Integrating Library Resources into Blackboard 1702 Medicine and Medical Science 1581 Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems 1536 History & Archives 1483 Physiotherapy 1229 Standards and Patents 1203
- 16. Since Then Intranet Library spotlight Health and Wellbeing Collection Maybe even….. Library website Increasing usage
- 17. Conclusion 2003 Introduced Subject portals 2011 abandoned due to low usage stats and work load concerns 2013 Brought back due to new IL Strategy 2015 Usage Stats still low, But library happy Now we have Subject portals that are sustainable, flexible and Libguides can be used for more than subject portals
- 18. Thank you Diarmuid Stokes - Liaison Librarian, UCD e: Diarmuid.Stokes@ucd.ie t: @dstokes01
- 20. Bibliography ‘Portal’ by Carl Jones, https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0099009/photos/_belial/1107620460/. Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/. ‘Why?...why not?’ by BuzzFarmers, https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0097009/photos/buzzfarmers/7318389106. Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/. ‘Choices’ by Steve, https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0093009/photos/stevej2000/173207541/. Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/. ‘Lego Conference’ by Julien GONG Min https://www.flickr.com/photos/bfishadow/2883788275/ Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ ‘Day 056/365 - Here you are’ by Great Beyond https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0093009/photos/tonyjcase/5513268098/. Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/. ‘Fortune telling machine’ by Lorraine W, https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0093009/photos/mrswoman/79526907/. Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/.# ‘365/365: 12/31/2013. The End!’ by peddhapati, https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0095009/photos/peddhapati/11671457605/. Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/. ‘Question mark in Esbjerg’ by Alexander Henning Drachmann, https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0094009/photos/drachmann/327122302/. Licence at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/2.0/. Image attribution DALTON, M. & PAN, R. 2014. Snakes or Ladders? Evaluating a LibGuides Pilot at UCD Library. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 40, 515-520. REEB, B. & GIBBONS, S. 2004. Students, librarians, and subject guides: Improving a poor rate of return. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 4, 123-130. STEVENS, C. H., CANFIELD, M. P. & GARDNER, J. J. 1973. Library pathfinders: A new possibility for cooperative reference service. College & Research Libraries, 34, 40-46.
Editor's Notes
- Thanks for having me today. What I’m going to be talking today is online the journey that UCD Library took in supporting the various disciplines supported in University College Dublin. In particular I will be talking about the subject portals that UCD Library developed over the years. In keeping with the theme of the conference, there will be one extinction level event. I’ll let you know when that is happening, so those with nervous dispositions can look away. However, not to give the ending completely away there is a happy ending. As I look over how UCD has gotten to where currently are, we’ll be looking over the evolution of the UCD website, so please look kindly on our past efforts. We didn’t know better at the time.
- This is how we started way back in 1997. This is as basic as you can get. Just five pages with basic information, but it does offer cutting edge technology with Telnet. Somebody saw this website while I was preparing this presentation and they were very complementary about it. They felt it was very clean and clear. At this stage we hadn’t started to include any subject material on the website.
- By 1999 we started to add subject support. We now listing of databases by subject and also links to subject resources Subject Guides to Resources on the Web. Given the scope of UCD things are quite limited with only database listings for 20 subjects and 9 web listing subjects covered
- 2003 saw the introduction of a proper subject guide/portal with all the discrete elements drawn together. We are now up to 47 individual subject portals. They listed databases, websites, school website, information on how to access our journal collections and how to contact the subject librarian. From now on this the model that the library follows for subject portals. As librarians get used to the portals in some cases they individualised with subject specific being added. This doesn’t happen in all cases, some pretty remain the same as in 2003.
- 2008 sees the introduction of web 2.0 into the subject portals. In an attempt to cut down on the coding delicious collections were created and google customs searches were created to allow users to search these website for information. In addition Serial solutions was used to create subject listing of journals and databases which could then be easily slotted into relevant subject portals. We now have 62 subject portals.
- Then in 2011 it all changed. The university decided that how website were going to be managed was going to change. It felt that a rationalisation of disparate individual efforts needed to introduce consistency and reduce the amount of time and effort required to maintain the website for an institution the size of UCD. The University decided to move to a content management system called terminal 4. The library was not exempt from this and had to spend considerable time and effort in creating the new website in the new CMS. While all this was happening the library was coming under increasing pressure. Staffing numbers were under pressure and there were less staff around to do things like maintain the website. In particular Subject librarian numbers were on the decrease and by this stage some subject had no designated subject Librarian. As a consequence of that the library had to rethink how it was going to support the website going forward. The consensus was that a smaller more focused group of people would be the way to go and as a consequence the website committee was disbanded. It was a going to be a big job for the library to redevelop the website on the platform. The CMS was quite technical to set up and lacked a number of features that we took for granted with html. We ended up having to get an outside company of specialists to help us develop the website. During the first part of 2011 the new website had to be redeveloped on this new platform and go live by the start of the next academic year. This meant that all the website content had evaluated for inclusion. Some content was obviously definitely going to be kept on the website, opening hours, contacts, database listings etc. but all other webpages were up for review and had to justify their inclusion on the website. The subject portals didn’t make it. Here is the new website
- Following on from the restructuring, Client Services, the unit with responsibility for teaching and learning/Information literacy using the ANZIIL Standards for Information Literacy developed its policy which used three strands as it focus Finding, managing and evaluating information. Client services also developed a blended approach to supporting T& L. This allowed for librarian led sessions as before, but also supported online learning, Academic led sessions and self-directed learning. It was thought that the addition of subject specific guides would complement this strategy. At this stage a number of library staff across from a across the library independently started looking at libguides and wondering if they would be useful for their own purposes in the library. For Client Services perspective it was felt that libguides could be a useful way to reintroduce Subject guides and would support what we were trying to do with our learning strategy.
- If we cancelled subject Portals before why try them again? What is different? One of the things that was different this that we had different expectations of Subject Portals. The main reason for the getting rid of subject portals was that the figures were low. However when looking at the literature it become clear that high usage figures is not the norm any way. This can be due to such factors as lack of awareness of their existence, preference for using the web to find information (Google) and a perception that they don’t need them. Students often have a preferred method or a preferred database that they use almost exclusively in their own discipline (Ouellelte) There may also be underlying problems such as broken links, omitted resources or content that is not up to date (Courtois) The literature has identified characteristics which make them attractive to students Support for multidisciplinary subjects. Student may not have awareness of resources outside of their core area. Subject guides can help them get into a new subject. students will use subject guides if they are stuck. use a subject guide if they have to find information in a new discipline. Third, students will also use subject guides when their instructor specifically suggests that they do, as students are keenly aware that their instructors are the ones who determine the mark for their assignment. Only when the subject guides were displayed on the computer screen at the beginning of the testing did students regularly use them to answer the questions. So making them visible and in the right places would be important Providing a clearer description of the purpose of guides and how they can be used may help to address this issue, but of course, not all users will read the description or follow its guidelines However the attraction of a one stop shop is attractive and given the declared aim of the subject portal was to provide an introduction to a subject They are likely to be attractive to first year students who are making the transition to 3rd level education or to mature students who have been away from any form of education for some years. Both of these categories of students could find the amount of information available to them in University overwhelming and could welcome some guidance.
- Why Libguides What are Libguides? Libguides is an easy to use Content Management System used by many thousands of libraries worldwide. Librarians use it to curate knowledge and share information by creating online Guides on any topic, subject, course, on any process, on anything. Among its features • Easy to use Interface. Lowers needs for training and broadens staff engagement o This meant that our smaller pool of staff 6 CLLs versus 19 in the old days would be able to create all the subject guides. The low training requirement would mean that as many people from the team would be able to create content. • Add, Reuse, Share - Leverage Your Content sharing of content locally (within your guides and within your institution) and globally (reusing guides in LibGuides community). o This meant that once the information had been put once into the libguides system it could be dropped into any libguides without the need for extra work. Plus you can see the ‘best of breed’ from similar libguides around the world and use that to improve your own libguides. • Ability to embed wide range of widgets to improve interactivity i.e. RSS feed etc. o We can tailor subject guides by putting in relevant RSS feeds. In addition you can put in widgets from other services such as OneSearch, WorldCat etc. you are able to add more functionality and interactivity • In addition Libguides content can be embedded into Courseware, Facebook, Blogs, Discovery Layer, OPAC or into any other website. o Libguides can come into OneSearch our webscale discovery platform. One of the key things I mentioned earlier on was the need to put the subject guides in front of the students. This would help • Built-in Link Checker o Need to make sure that the content is up to date. Runs on a weekly basis. • Create templates for consistent look and feel. o Create a library identity and also will help to cut down on the creation as design element already taken care of.
- How did we implement it. We decided to run a pilot programme in 2013 covering only subjects covered in the arts programme. This was to be only for a year allowing us to evaluate it from a technical and management point of view as well as its effectiveness as a platform. We decided to develop 3 different guides 18 Subject guides which aimed to collect key resources together for each school in one place 4 General guides for selected library services such as admissions 3 research support guides covering areas such as bibliometrics The library had purchased the CMS option which gave us the most options over customisation, we decided for the pilot to do very little customisation. We matched the colour scheme to the match the library website and created separate headers to distinguish the various types of guides. The biggest part of the project was building the content for the libguides. The Libguides group had to agree on what elements of the libguide were to be standard and therefore present on all guides Standardised template for the subject portals Policy on how to link to databases for on and off campus. Identification of what assets and widgets were to be added to a centralised library. This centralised library would allow material to be added once to the CMS and then quickly placed in any future libguide. It also meant that any changes to an asset or widget would have to be in the central library and then automatically updated across all libguides it featured in .This centralised library would be key to the sustainability of the project. The libguides went live at the end of May 2013. The library did limited promotion at this stage but the main focus would be for the start of the next academic year. Problems encountered included the fact that we only had guides a limited number of subjects, which made it difficult to promote as a library wide basis. We also had to rename them as it was felt that the term libguides was meaningless to the general public so we started calling them subject guides. The guides were promoted on the library website, on social media and by College Liaison Librarians at college and school meetings and information literacy sessions. At the end of the trial the project was assessed and while there were concerns, which I’ll talk about it was decided that libguides would be mainstreamed and extended to all subjects.
- Where are we now At this stage we have developed a wide range of guides Once again usage of some of the guides wasn’t high. Figures for the research guides and other general guides developed when the libguides were mainstreamed are very high This can be ascribed to a number of factors We knew from the literature that quite often the take up isn’t very high so that wasn’t a surprise and not a decisive factor. Didn’t get fully in front of the students eyes. So they weren’t fully aware of it. We had expected that libguides would be integrated into Summon our discover platform. This meant that when users searched for information that summon would insert relevant information from the appropriate libguide, i.e. Liaison Librarian and selected resources. But when libguides was upgraded to version 2 it became incompatible with summon and wouldn’t display. This seems to be nearly rectified and should be in place for the next academic year. The rise of the educational technologist. The ETs are actively taking library content, databases, tutorials, journals articles etc and linking it in Blackboard our VLE at a granular level that we cannot match. So we need to do more work with the these individuals to see if they will use the libguides in the future More publicity to make sure the students are aware of the guides. Research are shown that students don’t use them because they are not aware of them. Need to do more work with the academic community to make sure that they are promoting them to their students. However based on the qualitative research that the library conducted, students that do use them are very happy. Feedback included “it all seemed to be there”; “covers everything you need”; Useful, pretty inclusive. Students who weren’t aware of them said that they would potentially find such a resource helpful. Where are we now At this stage we have created 42 subject guides, 9 research guides, our library intranet has been changed to a libgudie, we use it for our UCD Library Spotlight, Library Staff Intranet, Health & Wellbeing Collection.
- The future we will continue to refine and develop the libguides. Improve our marketing, make sure that students and academics are aware and hopefully using them as well.