First, SpringShare has great marketing.  

Secondly, it is a very simple CMS that was offered at a time that many libraries were not getting good web support from IT.  LibGuides became the easiest way to edit web pages for many people.  It is certainly true at my institution, where we have had whole departments and units move their official website to LibGuides, rather than deal with Adobe Contribute and loose HTML files.  I am now in the midst of trying to fix that problem by rolling out an enterprise-level web cms, but I am finding many pages that have quietly moved to LibGuides.

There IS the one compelling thing about sharing a module between different institutions on LibGuides.  If one of our faculty members generates a list of special resources for a topic, another faculty member in another institution can just insert that module into their page.  Of course, the worldwide web solved pretty much the same problems ages ago with the invention of links, so I'm not sure that is really that compelling anymore.

Just my two cents..

Mark 

________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of davesgonechina [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2013 9:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it

I've not had an opportunity to use LibGuides, but I've seen a few and read
the features list on the SpringShare. All I see is a less flexible
WordPress at a higher price point. What advantages am I not seeing? If
there aren't any, is it the case that once signed up, migration to an open
source platform is just not worth it for most institutions?