Serendipity35

Though LibGuides, a product from Springshare, is aimed at libraries, we are already using it in ways other than just a library tool used by librarians.

As of now, in New Jersey, there are only 2 public libraries -Burlington County Library System and Camden County College and 4 schools - Ocean City Free Public Library, my own Passaic County Community College, Princeton University, and Rowan University - using LibGuides. However, there are currently 8,322 LibGuides published online by 3,757 librarians at 226 institutions. The number of institutions has doubled since January. (See the Community page)

We purchased a license this year because we specifically wanted to have each of the 20 Gen Ed courses we are redesigning over the next 5 years use a LibGuide. What we like about this tool is that it a very easy web design tool that also allows for easy collaboration (through accounts). Each of our courses will have at least one faculty member who is teaching the course as a lead editor, and at least one librarian or subject matter expert as an editor.

We also have guides for the Writing Initiative, our college writing exam, Spanish audio files, the College Experience course and online learning resources - and , of course, for the college library.

It you're a very 2.0 person already, you might say it sounds like a wiki, and their are some similarities. Creating a blank guide is very simple for anyone with an account. Then the web pages are built using a series of "boxes" that you select. There are simple text and rich text types, plus video embedding, links with annotations, RSS feeds, pathways to your libraries databases etc.

The first guide I did when I was learning how to use LibGuides was a simple one page meta-LibGuide for my fellow PCCC account holders with links to particular other school guides that I thought they could use as models, and some help pages. You can pick a custom URL for your guide (I made it http://pccc.libguides.com/users ) or just accept the system-generated URL (in this case http://pccc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=5263 )

There's an admin toolbox for your account that lets you set sitewide colors and formats (basically CSS), design the home page, banner, etc. You can also leave some areas open. For example, we have chosen to allow individual guide creators to change their colors and other style settings.

You can allow or disallow comments for a box, page or guide.

There are nice 2.0 plug-ins like a del.icio.us tag cloud

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or your Twitter or other feed

and links since you will want to be able to share your guide with friends (in the social networking sense of friends anyway) via your favorite social sites and tools like Digg or MySpace or that old favorite, email.

LibGuides was the first library app to be added to Facebook, so you can meet your students where they hang out.

Every page in a guide has a link at he page bottom that says "View this page in a format suitable for printers, mobile devices and screen-readers" which will strip out the styles that make web pages suitable for those applications and accessible for those with special needs.

And the plain text or rich text or code view editors allows for users ranging from those who are only used to a word processor (rich test) to code monkeys to create new pages easily.

You can also collaborate by pulling information from other guides that you have already created, others from your institution or from other institutions. For example, you create a course guide that includes a page on eTutoring and another on using MLA style for the research assignment. When you create your next guide, if you want to use those two pages again, you simply select them and they will be pulled into the new guide. Not your traditional learning object but the same concept. It's the same for someone else's content. A good idea for people to share pages within a department or college.

Which brings me to permission and rights... Within PCCC, it would be easy for me to ask a colleague permission to use their content, but what about if a teacher at PCCC wants to include some of the history research material from an Acadia Libguide or the 12 step guide to "Writing College Papers" from Anne Arundel Community College?

When you find the guide you want to use as a template for your own guide, contact the guide owner (their contact info is in the profile box on the right of a guide) and get their permission to use the guide as a template. What if you don't ask first? Keep reading.

When you create your new guide, the options for the guide template (at the very bottom) are to use a guide from one of community institutions. Select that and the pop-up will expand and ask you for the URL of a guide from another institution that you would like to use as a template. LibGuides will find this guide and copy its contents into your newly created guide. It will also send an email notification to the original guide owner telling them you used their guide as a template. Your email address, your institution, and the name of your new guide will be listed in this email sent to the original owner. Springshare can remove permissions and accounts for abuses. I'd like to see the option for me to add an editor from another institution to a guide so that we could collaborate on a guide. (Are you reading this post Springshare people?)