Subject Guides 2.0

Looking at Subject Guides 2.0

Academic libraries have used subject guides as a means to impart useful and relevant resources to their user communities for many years. Unfortunately, traditional print subject guides and static guides on websites do not allow for much feedback or engagement with the guides' end users. Librarians are also faced with the potentially time consuming task of searching and updating content for static subject guides to ensure that resources remain current and relevant in a world where information resources are ever changing. With the introduction of social software, subject guides now have the opportunity to move in a new direction that can benefit both the guides’ end users and those responsible for creating and maintaining the guides.

While there are many different social software products that are currently being implemented in academic libraries, this project will focus on examining how LibGuides and Drupal can be used to create subject guides in an academic library setting.

Examining Existing Guides

One of the first hurdles to overcome in the construction of my guide was the issue of content. I decided to start with an existing “guide” on the UML website for Environment & Geography which is basically just different groupings of web links. It is worth mentioning that a notation at the bottom of the guide states that it was created in 2004 - as you can imagine, the infrasture of the Internet has changed significantly over the past five years.

Guide Structure

My guide prototypes are organized primarily using tabs corresponding to different types of resources that students often require for their research (e.g. reference, books, articles, etc.).

LibGuides

Take a look at my LibGuides prototype then check out the rest of this section to learn about my experience building the guide.

Drupal

I first started using Drupal this May for some other projects at University of Manitoba Libraries (UML) and while I have certainly come far in the past few months, I am still learning as I go along.

Feel free to take a look at my Drupal subject guide prototype.

Comparing LibGuides and Drupal

The following table helps summarize some criteria to consider before implementing LibGuides or Drupal at your library.

Recommendations and Best Practices

When/if considering upgrading your existing subject guides using either LibGuides or Drupal, here are some things to other consider. Additional sources of information about LibGuides and Drupal can also be found under the Additional Readings section of this website.

With both products, I recommend taking a look at existing guides to see what is being done by the online communities, talking with those who will be creating/maintaining the guides to see what they want to be able to accomplish and if possible talking to your users to see what they want/need.