1. Decentralizing Your Website
LibGuides as a Web Development Tool
Steve Bahnaman - NC Weslyan College
Steve Osler - Central Piedmont CC

2. The Problem: A Disconnect
IT Departments and Libraries have different priorities when it
comes to maintaining and updating a website.
Libraries IT Departments
•Maximum access •Secure
•Dynamic, lively, and inviting •Stable
•Usable •Low-maintenance
•Works on and off campus •More technical design
Practically, this leads to sites Because IT deals with
with proxies, widgets, news problems when they occur, they
feeds, and lots of articulation are more likely to design to
with various online resources. avoid problems.

3. The Problem: Continued
Because they are susceptible to the same
stereotypes as other people are, your IT
department may assume that the #1 priority
of the library is stability and security as well.
Unless your library has its own IT
department, campus IT lacks a vested
interest in a dynamic library web presence.
They will also never see your library site as
critical to their mission.

4. Goals
• Allow librarians to create web content
quickly, with professional
looking, consistent results.
• Increase outreach to college departments by
offering them individualized web pages.
• Create a dynamic web presence that doesn’t
require so much detailed updating every time
something changes.

5. Websites
• CPCC: Content Management System (Plone)
o Updating content is cumbersome
o Limited to standard HTML
o Giving librarians rights to create new pages is
problematic
• NCWC: Drupal-based CMS with homemade
editor
• Updating content is WYSIWYG but tricky and quirky
• Many rules are set by IT and marketers
• Librarians cannot edit the widget-and-box-heavy
homepage, only the sub-pages

6. Enter LibGuides
• A content-management service designed to
allow libraries to make subject- and course-
specific guides easily and quickly.
• A sharing platform designed to become more
and more streamlined as it grows.
• An easy way to incorporate the array of 2.0
tools.

7. Working Smarter, Not Harder
• LibGuides consists of different types of
content.
o Pages
o Boxes
o Links
• Any of these can be reused over and
over again across the system.

8. Types of Content

9. Types of Content

10. Types of Content

11. Working Smarter, Not Harder!

12. Facilitate Speed
Browser Plugin
Link Checker
Database Import Tool

13. Facilitate Sharing
• CPCC has a few guides that exist only to house
shared content.
o Database Links
o Database and Catalog Search Boxes
o Libraryh3lp Chat Widget
o Video Tutorials
• These can be used the way that many libraries
use a shared drive or an intranet…except they
can be reused even more easily!

14. Facilitate Sharing
• Widgets showing new guides

15. Our Reusable Content

16. Our Reusable Content
Database List and Subjects

17. Our Reusable Content

18. Cross-Sharing
• LibGuides enables users to choose other
libraries’ guides as a template for starting
their own.
• This is voluntary, but is seen as central to
the idea of LibGuides as a sharing tool.
• You were probably doing this anyway.

19. A 2.0 Toolbox
• Most of the things libraries want to do with
Web 2.0 are pretty simple in principle:
– Share more in places where patrons already are
– Make design more dynamic at point of need
• LibGuides facilitates this too, largely through
the use of widgets.
• LibGuides also has great stats-tracking.

20. Uses So Far
• Traditional Research Guides
• Class guides for in-person and online only
classes
• Basic Skills Guide (For GED Students)
o Links to Kahn Academy Exercises
• Databases interface
• Faculty Workshops and possibly some
institutional digital repository functions
• Any time we find the need to make a site more
dynamic, or where the links change frequently

21. Potential Drawbacks
• NCWC has a heavily “split site” now; search
boxes etc. don’t always share content.
• A bit “uglier” than some web developers
might like.
• Difficult to ensure uniformity since so many
people create pages.

22. This was not a LibGuides
Commercial

23. Questions and Comments
• What have your web/LibGuides experiences
taught you?
• What questions do you have for us?