Your best bet is to get a clear mandate from administration on what should go where.  i.e., "Writing a subject guide for faculty and students to use?  Put it in a LibGuide.  Creating a departmental, unit, or committee site?  Use the new fancy, shiny web content management system!"

Barring that, you are left to fight each battle one at a time.  

If your system is simple and straightforward enough, though, you will likely win those battles.  It certainly helps if you have a very clean look in your own sites, since I find that LibGuides are harder to customize for a nice clean look, especially one that varies by department, etc..

Mark

________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Heather Rayl [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2013 9:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it

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

On Sunday, August 11, 2013, Sean Hannan wrote:

> All of this, plus SpringShare has great support. Like, the best of any
> library vendor I've dealt with. I've had them implement features within an
> hour of me sending the email suggesting it.
>
> The big downside of LibGuides is that it's ease of use (and ease if reuse)
> leads to content sprawl like you wouldn't believe. The new version has a
> publishing workflow that can help mitigate this, but it's better to go into
> a LibGuides project with a content strategy firmly in place.
>
> -Sean
> ________________________________________
> From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask] <javascript:;>] on
> behalf of Sullivan, Mark V [[log in to unmask] <javascript:;>]
> Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2013 9:44 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides: I don't get it
>
> 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] <javascript:;>] on
> behalf of davesgonechina [[log in to unmask] <javascript:;>]
> Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2013 9:23 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>
> 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?
>