Aaron W. Dobbs

This book starts off with an almost tutorial-like set of chapters on setting up your LibGuides in the first place in a technical way, but then also gets into planning considerations like developing an internal style guide, purpose, oversight, management, and so forth. We then glide into how to make your guides useful and functional, including a glimpse into Bootstrap and CSS possibilities, and finally application to library instruction models.

Best/ideal audience for this book: librarians newly adopting LibGuides and are spearheading the process (or otherwise will be working as admins in to the system and providing training and documentation to the rest of their team). Academic librarians is the primary library type, but others may still glean useful principles.

This isn't a thorough look at any one aspect of the system, but it would make a very useful primer and serve as a starting point for what to plan for or learn more about. It may also be a good training read for those who haven't grokked the LibGuides system in a bigger picture way and might enjoy reading a book instead of online guides and tutorials (not on actually using the system, but the important and overlooked and hugely detailed efforts of tags! Subjects! Lists not paragraphs! Alt text on images! Holy crap please remember the alt text, pleeeease, these things matter and are not optional).

Only very slightly outdated: I only completely skipped one chapter (3) that was about making the case for migrating from LibGuides v1 to v2, which is now a non-issue as far as I'm aware. No big deal.

Where you're at in the process of adopting LibGuides will affect how useful you find this book. Those earliest chapters that really navigate you through the admin panels? I'm well past that. The planning chapters? We did a good portion already; other bits maybe we can adopt as we continue to grow (lots of sensible best practices for forward-thinking admins). Other parts on navigation or accessibility may be a rehash for anyone already interested in user experience; on the other hand, someone new to this whole area would find these chapters a useful introduction to theory and best practices.

Chapter 8 on Making User-Friendly Guides: Navigation and Content Considerations had me taking the most notes. It's got practical considerations for things you can still easily start doing, as opposed to the sticky situation of e.g. oh noes you've been making guides for years but don't have a content management plan.

There were 2.5 chapters on accessibility practices, which is an important topic but felt a little sloppy -- but I guess that's a risk in collecting chapters from multiple authors (then again I assume editors/compilers could do something...). I would have switched the order of chapters 10 and 11, just because 11 touched a little more on the general principles behind accessible design that I think would add valuable context to the unaware. However, either way, you end up with two very, very similar chapters back-to-back. Chapter 13 in the pedagogy section also has a bit to day on the subject, too, hence my ".5" above. It's an important subject, but this was a lot of redundancy.

I did snag on a contradiction across chapters which I've noticed before in general. I see the issue in three parts:
1) don't have pics, videos, RSS feeds, etc on the guides! Less is more! Stick with text and links only!
2) when teaching, appeal to different types of learners, whether that's a visual vs auditory option or accounting for introverts or whatever.
3) text is the quickest, easiest way to communicate info, but web design (and modern bandwidth etc) veers towards the heavily visual these days.

I'd just like to see the POVs more clearly reconciled. Text on a page, even if it's brief, is still boring and not visually engaging. Our students aren't browsing our guides for fun and voluntary engagement, of course... But would that help pull to them in? Or do they expect and prefer academic stuff to look dull? (My college's website redesign definitely goes for the former idea: loads more video and photos now.)

Also, I want to see some meta-analysis on focus groups. A couple chapters here talk about doing those to figure out how students look for info and navigate, and that's what I hear at conferences, too...(conclusions from focus groups and user studies I mean) But how applicable are YOUR students to MY students? 4/5 students in one liked the tabbed boxes; in other places I've seen discussion of students blanking on those just like they do the tabbed layout. (And anecdotally, I see my students using the top nav more than in-page Tables of Contents, which contradicts others' findings, though they definitely get confused by drop-down subpages on that layout.) I have a very hard time imagining us getting a worthwhile focus group together, let alone the selection bias inherent in any such venture (i.e. skew towards library-conscious students) that still makes the conclusions questionable.

And then I get frustrated and have to go think about other things that aren't the specious conclusions of higher ed user research.

Where was I?

This book...I found it worth my time. Even with familiar topics, I'm usually happy to get refreshers. It might be worth some of my colleagues' time, too, especially selected chapters for reinforcement *cough*. Others may find it completely boring old hat. Others may value every page thereof. As stated, if you're a new adopter and have influence on the way your LG system is being deployed, start off with this quick read as your ground 0 and go from there: you will find this framework helpful, and it's a one-stop-shop for some good ideas.… (plus d'informations)

The only people who are going to read this book are library professionals working with LibGuides, since it's such a specific product. With that in mind, I found the need to include a chapter detailing a history of pathfinders to be especially redundant. We, as librarians and library professionals, are already going to know this stuff. We don't need a intro on why it is necessary in a book geared on using a specific pathfinder software.

As this was a LITA publication, the technical arm of the library professional organization, I also did not expect the book to be set up as an academic anthology. Which it was, complete with footnotes and references as well as lots of theorizing and paragraphs spent on historical value peppering the articles.

Additional cons: The price is hefty ($65), for the scope and content of the book. A chapter on design and perspective has the images in black and white -- which seems quizzical since color is a big part of design aesthetic. Why do a chapter on design and not include color elements?

This should be a technical book on how to use the service and maybe some light theorizing along the way. Rather, it's a theory and research driven introduction to the software.

Did I learn anything from it? Sure, a few bits and pieces but what I thought this book was (a HowTo through the software) and what it actually was was vastly different. Even more so since a lot of the HowTo technical information is available online and what I was hoping for was more tips/tricks in a cohesive fashion.

Lastly, there were lots and lots of links and such to websites for examples and discussion, but not ONE online landing page (that I could find) for the material name. Which seems silly and kind of backwards.

I gave this three stars because there was some good information, and some of the appendixes are useful (barely), but overall it is not a good fit for someone who has experience working with the software. A library student, someone new to pathfinders or LibGuides may find value with this title, but if you've created even one guide, this will be too plebeian and a general mess.… (plus d'informations)

LibGuides is not free but many teacher librarians love it because they can assemble in one place many resources attached to a unit of instruction or interest that is commonly requested by patrons. It is a cross between a bibliography and a guide to the literature. I have had some teacher librarians experiment with using the LibGuide as a structure for a collaborative unit of instruction with both teachers and students using it to add to what the teacher librarian may have designed. This collection of guiding articles is intended to get you using and improving the guides that you have begun to create. In this way, it is like a checklist for the person who is beginning but also to check your knowledge with others in the field to see if you can glean any new ideas and tips. It is not targeted at the school teacher librarian per se, but at a larger audience of librarians of all types. If you are a novice or an experienced novice, this guide is worth the price. It will help with many design features and also give ideas for content and maintenance across time. Recommended.… (plus d'informations)