Working with LibGuides: student or corporate centre design?

Citation

Mooney, J. (2012), "Working with LibGuides: student or corporate centre design?", Reference Reviews, Vol. 26 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/rr.2012.09926aaa.002

Working with LibGuides: student or corporate centre design?

Article Type: Viewpoint From: Reference Reviews, Volume 26, Issue 1

Purpose - This Viewpoint aims to explore the use of LibGuides and its technological impact on the librarian’s role.Design/methodology/approach - The Viewpoint examines the relationship of LibGuide adoption, management, design and creation at the University of Liverpool and the changing role of the librarian.Findings - LibGuides, of themselves, are a valuable tool in the dissemination of information. With the rapidly converging fields of technology and librarianship, the librarian’s role is built upon shifting sands with an ever increasing range of skills needing to be brought to hand.Originality/value - This article offers a concise look at the key factors affecting the evolution of the University’s Library LibGuides in a media-convergent arena, focusing on the librarian’s role in the digital age.

Keywords: LibGuides, Interface management, Information literacy, Librarians

The impact of technology has had an astounding effect on the role of the liaison librarian. We have moved on from dusty bookshelves in quiet forgotten corners, creeping keepers of the peace armed with a rubber stamp and a well timed “shhh”. We have evolved into twenty-first century, digital-manipulating, media-savvy, astute presenters of the arcane and miraculous. Why arcane and miraculous? If you looked at the academic library system and the librarian’s role within it 50 years ago and compared that with today, you could be forgiven for mistaking the disparity between the two as a science fiction dream.

There is already an enormous wealth of research on the subject of technology and the librarian’s role, and it is certainly true that “if information is your profession, you are no longer on paper” (Riley-Huff and Rholes, 2011). We, librarians, are in a process of change; a significant widening of our professional remit and the emergence of new methods of delivery all place a strain on a most valuable commodity – time.

This is where the promise of using technology to help take some of the pressure off repetitive information delivery is supposed to come charging to the rescue. This particular steed is known as a LibGuide. LibGuides are part of a suite of software solutions created by Springshare in 2007 (LibGuides, CampusGuides, LibAnswers). The company was founded by Slaven Zivkovic, who was once webmaster for the Orradre Library at Santa Clara University, based in California.

LibGuides is a Web 2.0-based content management and information dissemination system initially designed for the growing needs of librarians to create digital content for their departments without specific multimedia or programming knowledge. The system allows any librarian to create an online resource guide or collection of information on a particular topic within a very short time. There are over 30,000 librarians at over 2,500 libraries currently using LibGuides to manage the dissemination of subject-specific information to their students. Although the vast majority of Springshare’s clients are from academic libraries, there has also been a recent trend of non-academic establishments adopting this platform.

The University of Liverpool trialled LibGuides during 2010 and adopted the system later that year. The raison d’être was to allow liaison librarians to create a subject-level point of contact with their students, presenting a bespoke information service that would be easily updated by the librarians themselves.

The LibGuide software is hosted on Springshare’s own servers and its users (content creators) gain access via an internet connection and a browser. The interface is clean and intuitive, allowing relative internet technology newcomers and experienced web page editors to quickly and easily produce professional looking web pages (“guides”). The initial page is quite sparse, with a default three-column set-up and a box in each column ready for you to input your content. Everything is customisable within the parameters that your organization has set. You can edit the colour scheme, the number of columns on each guide, the name and number of tabbed pages you create for each guide, as well as the headers and footers of each sub-section. You can create your content by typing directly into the boxes or cut and paste content you have prepared earlier.

You can upload RSS feeds directly and simply into your guides, integrate your LibGuide directly into Facebook or Twitter or insert a live chat facility on to your chosen page without needing any programming skills or experience at all. For librarians, the ability to insert a dialogue box designed to search their own universities’ databases by subject area is a massive plus. This allows for a comprehensive set of guides to be designed by the institutions’ subject specialists, aiding student (and staff) research from a single access point – and all without any knowledge of html or programming. Content-rich multimedia guides can embed social media and networking elements by using predefined widgets. Widgets are customisable, flash-based components which can be embedded into almost any web page, allowing blogs, Facebook updates and Twitter feeds to be integrated into your LibGuide. They are able to display any selected LibGuide content, thereby greatly expanding the horizons of your LibGuide audience.

The major alternative to the use of LibGuides is for the institution to create its own web pages “in house”, using their existing servers and infrastructure. This is indeed a viable option, with some academic institutions opting for their internally hosted library web portal being the primary point from which library online content is disseminated. To be successful, however, the subject specialists (librarians), the webmaster and the IT managers and technicians would have to work in concert with one another. This can be a costly affair in terms of person hours, especially when trying to adapt content for the convergent nature of social networking. Another point to bear in mind in the current climate of austerity is the practice of IT outsourcing; this can put additional strain on an already overstretched IT department. It was the feedback from the IT department that prompted the library to look for an alternative platform for the hosting of subject-specific material, material that would need adjusting and updating as part of a continual cycle. The fact that resources can be shared and reused, with permission, of course, across the entire LibGuide community is an added benefit of using the platform, thereby cutting back on development time.

It is a sign of the times that a librarian-centric article can proclaim over 820 words and not have used the word “book”! The convergence of teaching, information literacy and media is occurring at a phenomenal rate. The adoption of a platform such as LibGuides serves to illustrate how far removed we are from the old worldview of librarians being custodians of ancient knowledge, holding a candle against the dark. We are transformed by new technological developments into facilitators of the transfer of vast amounts of information, brightly illuminating areas of research, throwing back the curtain of uncertainty.

At the University of Liverpool there has been some debate over the last year regarding the level of control individual liaison librarians could exert over the design and content of their subject LibGuides. Initially, the consensus was that each librarian should ensure that his or her particular guides were regularly updated and that the content stayed relevant. There was no set style or format recommended at this point, and the librarians could arrange the pages and the content they contained in any way the librarians deemed suitable. The question I would like to ask is “suitable to whom?” Is it the librarian who wishes to create a reference area for his or her subject guides? Or is it for the students to find and utilise a valuable resource aimed at improving their information literacy and subject knowledge skills?

The design of the interface presented to the students is an important factor when encouraging them to use the LibGuide as a major point of reference. Research has shown that we need to create an interface to actively engage with our audience, eliciting a positive emotional response rather than taking a purely functional route in the design of the LibGuide layout (Marcus, 2002). In order to create this motivational state within our audience, there would need to be a major rethinking of the presentation of the information contained within the LibGuide and, indeed, the entire LibGuide structure.

This goes against the grain of allowing the librarians free will with regard to the creation of the guide in the first instance and would need a more restrained approach. There is a fine balancing act at play here; a more controlled approach is needed to enable key motivational elements to be integrated into the interface to create a positive response from the end user. This must be done without falling into the trap of designing from an interface that de-motivates because its basic design is based purely upon function. We are still in the process of exploring this conundrum. Following on from our first year of using LibGuides and examining student questionnaire feedback, we have now created a set of “template pages” that all LibGuides at the University of Liverpool must use, but we have the freedom to decide on the nature and positioning of the information to be presented within the LibGuide.

The major aim in this endeavour was to create a content-rich portal designed to engage the students in a manner that would promote the development of a variety of information literacies. Our role has changed markedly over the last decade and is still in a position of flux. We are redefining our roles and skills as the basic nature of our trade converges with technology and social media networks. LibGuides are another tool in our arsenal, the central precept being that the LibGuide would give the librarian an opportunity to “illustrate their legitimacy to the university” by presenting a range of tutorials designed to “increase students’ literacy skills” (Kenton and Blummer, 2010). We have to re-invent ourselves, and media-rich platforms such as LibGuides may present us with a podium to do just that.

Jacqueline Mooney Liaison Librarian at The Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, Merseyside, UK. She can be contacted at: jacqueline.mooney@liv.ac.uk