I've posted about LibGuides before (see this post from several months ago). It's a content management system that allows librarians--or others--to present information to users in hopefully meaningful and useful ways. Often, LibGuides is used to create subject-based guides that are essentially digital pathfinders (tools to guide patrons or other users to where they can find information on a topic).
Different types of libraries find them useful for different things. Libraries for K-12 schools may use them to create a guide with information on a single topic like mythology or Algebra. Academic libraries that provide services for college-level students may take this concept one step further and create a guide to assist a single class; in this way the guide supports the specific assignments and curriculum for the class and becomes an additional resource the instructor can point students to. Public libraries seem to be the most varied in the use of LibGuides, and I've seen everything from subject guides on topics (similar to what academic and K-12 libraries do) to guides that outline library policy. Many libraries of all types will include their available databases on their guides.
Having been building and using LibGuides myself for some time (over 2 years now), I see some definite benefits to such a resource--if it's made to be meaningful to the intended audience. If you take some time to browse through the guides, you'll note that some are put together and just left, kind of a "fix it and forget it" mentality. I can see this as an option if it's for a class and the class never changes in terms of content or assignments, but for a lot of LibGuides I imagine that not actively maintaining them equates to a slow death as the resources become less and less viable for the intended audience. As with anything online, using LibGuides to create guides for your patrons is a commitment--one akin to keeping your library website up-to-date. As the needs of the audience changes, so too should the LibGuides. Once again, the needs of the user becomes a paramount consideration.
So why bring this up? It all ties in to my next two assignments for my Advanced Reference class. We've moved from providing reference services for a hypothetical reference question to analyzing databases to analyzing LibGuides and creating our own. We are in the process of currently learning about best practices for online subject guides in order to examine two published LibGuides made for the same topic and writing an analysis on how they each present the topic's information. I found two LibGuides created to provide information and resources on mythology, and while the amount of content is similar I'm already noticing some big differences on organization and the type of information/resources that are included. I'll probably be discussing more about LibGuides as I start the creation of my own guide (topic to be determined). As another kind of content management system, it does share some characteristics with other CMSs like Drupal (although Drupal has far fewer limitations and several other bonuses).
If you're interested in seeing how different libraries have used LibGuides, you can check out the community site for LibGuides published by subscribers.
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