I've found the LibraryH3lp folks to be quite fantastic compared to
Springshare in terms of support and responsiveness, and there is starting
to be a good bit of overlap between their services. I think Springshare
now offers a chat module (which is inferior IMO), and LibraryH3lp also
offers a free FAQ module that does the same thing as LibAnswers.
Interesting that LibraryH3lp is now developing an alternative to LibGuides
proper.

Josh Welker
Information Technology Librarian
James C. Kirkpatrick Library
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093
JCKL 2260
660.543.8022


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Terrell, Trey
Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 11:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it

Regarding Library a La Carte, active development has been taken over by
the folks over at LibraryH3lp. You can read their blog post at
http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2013/06/library-la-carte-resurrected-open.
html. I'm not sure how much longer it'll be before it's a viable plug-in
replacement again.

Trey

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
davesgonechina
Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 7:07 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it

You guys are awesome, this is great stuff, really helpful. My impression
of libguides has been fairly negative for many of the reasons mentioned,
but Sean has a good point about content strategy and training, and
Wilhemina has a good point about the costs of open source not always being
appreciated.

Has anyone tried the two platforms Andrew Darby mentioned, SubjectsPlus
and Library a la Carte? That's the sort of thing I've been looking for but
never found until now.

Dave


On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Sean Hannan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Again, this not a technical issue. It's a content strategy issue.
>
> Believe me, I was where you were. I was using all kinds of javascript
> and CSS hacks to try to prevent people from getting creative with
> color. I was getting to the point of setting up Capybara tests to run
> against the guides to alert me to abusive uses of bold and italics.
>
> The folks creating guides are content people, not web people. Take the
> web out of it. Focus on the content. Pick a couple heuristics to
> educate them on (we picked 7 +/- 2, above the fold/below the fold, and
> F-shaped reading patterns). Above all, show them statistics. And not
> the built-in LibGuides stats, either.
>
> New vs. returning. Average time on page. Pageviews over the course of
> a year. Very, very, very quickly our librarians realized what content
> is important, what content is superfluous, and that the time the spend
> carefully manicuring and maintaining their guides would (and could) be
> better spent elsewhere.
>
> -Sean
>
> On 8/12/13 9:35 AM, "Joshua Welker" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I just have to say I have been thinking the exact same thing about
> LibGuides
> > for the two years I've been using it. I feel vindicated knowing
> > others
> feel
> > the same way.
> >
> > At UCMO, we will be migrating to Drupal in the next several months,
> > and
> I am
> > hoping very much that I can convince people to use less LibGuides.
> >
> > LibGuides is great in its ease of use, but fails on just about every
> design
> > principle I can think of. There have been several studies on "tab
> blindness"
> > in LibGuides, and don't get me started on the sub-tab links that are
> hiding
> > and require the user to mouse over a tab to even see what is there.
> > I've tried telling people so many times to have just a few tabs and
> > always to
> use
> > a table of contents for the main page, but they rarely do. And it
> > becomes just about impossible to have a consistent look and feel
> > across your
> website
> > when LibGuides allows guide creators to modify every element on the
> > page
> as
> > they see fit. People will do crazy things like putting page content
> > in a sidebar element, something you'd never ever ever see on any
> > website on
> the
> > Internet. I tried to enforce uniform colors and column sizes across
> > all
> the
> > guides, but I was told to let it go because my coworkers wanted to
> > be
> able
> > to decide those things on a guide-by-guide basis.
> >
> > I've worked at two institutions that use LibGuides, and what
> > inevitably happens is that librarians create one Uber Guide for
> > entire subject areas (biology, religion, etc) and then create
> > sub-pages for all the dozens of specific disciplines within those
> > subject areas. And then, assuming the
> user
> > somehow manages to find these pages, they are typically not much
> > more
> than a
> > list of links that could have easily been included on the main
> > library website.
> >
> > Okay, sorry for the rant. It has been building up for several years
> > and never had a chance to voice out.
> >
> > Josh Welker
> > Information Technology Librarian
> > James C. Kirkpatrick Library
> > University of Central Missouri
> > Warrensburg, MO 64093
> > JCKL 2260
> > 660.543.8022
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> > Of Robert Sebek
> > Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2013 11:21 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 11, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Heather Rayl <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> >
> >> I have to say that I loathe LibGuides. My library makes extensive
> >> use of them, too. Need a web solution? The first thing out of
> >> someone's mouth is "Let's put it in a LibGuide!"
> >>
> >> Shudder
> >>
> >> This fall, I'll be moving our main site over to Drupal, and I'm
> >> hoping that eventually I can convince people to re-invent their
> >> LibGuides there. I can use the "saving money" card, and the
> >> "content silos are bad" card and
> >> *maybe* I will be successful.
> >>
> >> Anyone fought this particular battle before?
> >>
> >> ~heather
> >>
> >> I'm fighting that battle right now. We have an excellent CMS into
> >> which I
> > have set up all our database URLs, descriptions, etc.Anytime we need
> > to refer to a database on a page, we use one of those entries. That
> > database just changed platforms? No problem. I change the URL in one
> > place and everything automatically updates (hooray CMSs!).
> >
> > All of our subject guides (http://www.lib.vt.edu/subject-guides/)
> > are
> in the
> > CMS using the exact same database entries. I converted from our
> > failing, home-grown system into the CMS and then gave training on
> > how to maintain from there (remove an entry, add an entry, create a
> > parallel course guide)--using the same skills as maintaining any
> > other web page that librarian is responsible for. But apparently
that's too hard.
> >
> > So we have a trial of LibGuides. NO ONE here has created a guide
> > from scratch yet, but they all say this is going to be easy. No one
> > will
> admit
> > that someone will have to recreate all those database entries
> > (literally
> > hundreds) and then maintain those entries. When presented with this,
> several
> > librarians said--oh that won't be necessary, we'll just create
> > individual entries as needed on individual guides. WHAT?!
> >
> > If implemented, we'll have hundreds and hundreds of entries, any of
> > which could be out of date and nonfunctional, with no easy way to
> > find and fix, other than waiting for patrons to complain that the link
doesn't work.
> Ugh.
> > All for several thousand dollar a year (as opposed for free in the
CMS).
> >
> > And yes, those librarians' favorite example libguides have a dozen
> > tabs
> with
> > hundreds of links on each tab. Overwhelm the patron with links--who
> cares!
> > Just let me recreate the Yahoo Directory I so miss with every
> > possible resource I can find online. Half those links don't work next
semester?
> > Doesn't matter, as no one will ever maintain that page again (and no
> patron
> > will use it, since they will just Google these resources anyway).
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Robert Sebek
> > Webmaster, Virginia Tech Libraries
> > (http://www.lib.vt.edu/)
>