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The Power of LibGuides: An Introduction
- 1. The Power of LibGuides: An Introduction Michael Johnson, MLS Circulation Librarian, Shawnee State University March, 26th 2012
- 2. 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
- 3. 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
- 4. 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
- 5. 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
- 6. 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
- 7. 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
- 8. 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
- 9. 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
- 10. Macro Changes Lets take a look
- 11. 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
- 12. 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
- 13. Best Uses: Demonstrations Lets take a look: http://sandbox.campusguides.com/all-guides
- 14. Thank You! Email: mjohnson2@shawnee.edu Twitter: @mwjthelibrarian March 26th 2012