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Who has the ability to make policies about content styling? If no such policy exists, and no person or entity in your organization has such an ability, then what would give you, the IT person, the right to make your own policies and enforce them with a LibGuides feature? Wouldn't that result in just as much political problems and enmity? If someone entity have that ability, does such a policy exist? If not, what would it take to make such a policy? Including consultation with neccesary stakeholders etc. If such a policy exists, but librarians are ignoring it, is it appropriate to talk to their boss? And/or have a discussion about why the policy exists, and why it's important we all follow organizational policies to have a consistent business for our users? Now, really, I know this can take literally _years_ to deal with, or be impossible to deal with in some organizations. And since this is obviously a problem at nearly every library using LibGuides, _maybe_ it makes sense to put technical features in LibGuides allowing you to restrict editing variation etc. But if you only do the technical fix without the organizational issues, it is going to keep coming up again and again -- and you're maybe just going to get in a fight about why did you have the right to configure those restrictions? Jonathan On 9/24/14 12:56 PM, Joshua Welker wrote: > I lol'ed several times reading your message. I feel the pain. Well, it is > nice to know I am not alone. You are right that this in particular is an > organizational problem and not a LibGuides problem. But unfortunately it > has been an organizational problem at both of the universities where I've > worked that use LibGuides, and it sounds like it is a problem at many > other libraries. I'm not sure what it is about LibGuides that brings out > the most territorial and user-marginalizing aspects of the librarian > psyche. > > Does anyone have any positive experience in dealing with this? I am on the > verge of just manually enforcing good standards even though it will create > a lot of enmity. LibGuides CMS has a publishing workflow feature that > would force all guide edits to be approved by me so that I could stamp > this stuff out each time it happens. > > To enforce, or not to enforce, that is the question-- > Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of > outrageously poor usability, > Or to take arms against a sea of ugly guides, > And by forcing compliance with standards and best practices, end them? > > Josh Welker > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of > Will Martin > Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 11:34 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav > >> 4. Admin controls are not very granular. With most aspects of editing >> a guide, you either have the option of locking down styles and >> templates completely (and oh your colleagues will howl) or allowing >> everything (and oh your eyeballs will scream). Some of these things >> could very well be improved in the future, and some probably will not. > > This! My librarians have successfully resisted every attempt to impose > any kind of standardization. Visual guidelines? Nope. Content > guidelines? Nope. Standard system settings? Nope. Anything less than > 100% free reign appears to be anathema to them. > > The result, predictably, is chaos. Our guides run the gamut. We have > everything: > > - Giant walls of text that no one ever reads. > > - Lovingly crafted lists of obscure library sources that rarely (if > ever) bear any relation to what the patron is actually trying to do. > > - A thriving ecosystem of competing labels. Is it "Article Indexes", > "Article Databases", just plain "Databases", or something more exotic? > Depends which apex predator rules this particular neck of the jungle. > > - Green text on pink backgrounds with maroon borders. Other pages in the > same guide might go with different, equally eye-twisting color schemes. > I'm not even sure how he's doing that without access to the style sheet, > but he's probably taught himself just enough HTML to mangle things in an > effort to use "friendly" colors. > > - Some guides have three or even FOUR rows of tabs. With drop-down > submenus on most of them, naturally. > > - A few are nicely curated and easy to use, but they're in a distinct > minority. > > I've tried. I've pushed peer-reviewed usability studies at them. I've > reported on conference sessions explaining exactly why all these things > are bad. I've brought them studies of our own analytics. I've had > students sit down and get confused in front of them. Nothing has gotten > through, and being the only web type at the library, I'm outnumbered. > Just the thought of it makes me supremely tired. > > I'm sorry if this has digressed. LibGuides is not at fault, really. > It's an organizational problem. LibGuides just seems to be the flash > point for it. > > Will > >