LibGuides - Worth a Look

Jen Maney -- School Library Journal, 1/14/2009

If you’re like me, you struggle with ways to get kids and teens to notice and use your library’s resources. Ask a kid or teen (and I have) what they do on the library’s Web site, and they’ll talk about looking up books, and, if you’re lucky, they may say they renew their books. Ask them if they know about the plethora of homework stuff you offer online, and they’ll look at you blankly. Maybe it’s because libraries don’t advertise well. Or maybe it’s because these resources are complicated, and we present them to the public in complicated ways. We’re always looking for easy, clean ways to present info on subjects that kids and teens need for school, life and fun.

Enter LibGuides from Springshare. LibGuides is a hosted service which allows you to create online subject guides easily. No need for a web server or IT staff, because LibGuides hosts the content on their servers. A guide is made up of boxes of content that you create and put together to form a guide. Really, the words “subject guides” don’t do justice to what LibGuides offers.

LibGuides is 2.0 goodness at its best. Integrate your LibGuides into Facebook to reach out to users where they are. Get comments on LibGuides from users right there on the page. Pull RSS feeds from Google Reader, Delicious, or your own Web site news into your LibGuides. Post your LibGuides updates to Twitter automatically. Add a Meebo box to your LibGuides to chat with your users in real time. Oh, and yes, link to your databases and favorite Web sites by subject. You can even use content from one guide on another guide. LibGuides are also customizable – add your header and footer, choose your colors, and pick what boxes you want on each guide.

There’s a lot to LibGuides that merits a very close look. The best place to start is Cindy Trainor’s Cindy Trainor’s BIGWIG Social Software Showcase 2008 presentation. Watch this eight minute video, and you’ll see what I mean about 2.0 goodness. She’s not the only one who likes LibGuides. Looking around the web, I found many positive reviews about LibGuides.

LibGuides is not a free service, so you’ll have to keep your budget in mind. From blog postings, Cindy Trainor’s video, and the Springshare Website, LibGuides appears to be very affordable. According to Springshare’s FAQs, “annual license fee ranges from $899 to $2,999. Most libraries would fall under the lower license range.” So far, LibGuides is mostly used by academic libraries, but I can imagine some great uses for LibGuides for schools and public libraries - reader's advisory guide for teens, homework subject guides, ask a librarian guide. I know I’m going to request a quote for my library. To see what some of the academic libraries are doing, take a look at some guides created by Community Members.

If you’re looking for something free and you have some web development know-how and IT support, you might want to look at SubjectsPlus, an open-source product created by Ithaca College Library. SubjectsPlus is not hosted for you - you have to be able to get it onto your web server. There are some differences in functionality from LibGuides, but worth considering if budget is more of a concern than IT support.

Jen Maney is the Virtual Library Manager for Pima County Public Library in Tucson, Arizona. The motto of the Virtual Library is, "Designing for uncertainty."

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