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Slowly but surely we are beginning to use LibGuides. I have played with some of the fantastic advanced feature (you can do almost anything with the rich text editor) but my Library's first official foray will come later this month with the publication of our first eNewsletter.
Surf the Web Smarter(tm) was originally a hands-on class I taught and sometimes adapted for presentation. (This is my Googlpages outline of the presentation). The name was catchy and the class was a huge success. I know that a "library newsletter" would be seen as another link to overlook - self-serving marketing - to the jaded researcher (I say that with love). So, steal the name of a succesful class, throw in some juicy web surfing tid-bits and THEN start in on the shameless self advertising.
Surf the Web Smarter: 10 Tips for Surfing Google Smarter includes the earliest intro to Google as well as our reported top journals, new books (from LibraryThing) and other goodies.
I realize that posting this here blows my anonymity. It goes without saying, well no it doesn't since I'm going to say it - the views expressed in this blog are solely mine and in now way show endorsement or reflection on the institution for which I work. :)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
My library will be implementing LibGuides over the next few months and I will chart our progress here. I will have to explain why we chose LibGuides and our goals for the guides at a later date. What I want to talk about now is branding.
LibGuides does a great job of letting a library brand their page. Of course, LibGuides is set up on this premise were they are providing libraries a service that the libraries use to serve their patrons. I think that database vendors could take a lesson from them. Often on commercial or society database products the ability to place the library brand on the page is non-existent or very small. I repeatedly hear librarians clamor for more branding. This isn't just a quest for information dominance (ok, maybe a little) but the problem of "everything is free on the Internet" is easy to propogate in this way. If a patron find an article through Google Scholar, clicks, and voila - instant article! They have no way of knowing that there is a cost associated with the product as well as hours of licensing negotiation on their behalf. Now I realize that the publishers have a brand they want to get out there too - however, the libraries are sometimes their only advocates when funding time comes, not the end-user.
Regardless, I'm impressed so far with how much I can make my LibGuides page feel like my library website. Hopefully this translates into value-added by the library. In the future as we try to be "where the patrons are" more and become ubiquitous the problem arises: how to be valuable when you are (rightfully) invisible.
LibGuides does a great job of letting a library brand their page. Of course, LibGuides is set up on this premise were they are providing libraries a service that the libraries use to serve their patrons. I think that database vendors could take a lesson from them. Often on commercial or society database products the ability to place the library brand on the page is non-existent or very small. I repeatedly hear librarians clamor for more branding. This isn't just a quest for information dominance (ok, maybe a little) but the problem of "everything is free on the Internet" is easy to propogate in this way. If a patron find an article through Google Scholar, clicks, and voila - instant article! They have no way of knowing that there is a cost associated with the product as well as hours of licensing negotiation on their behalf. Now I realize that the publishers have a brand they want to get out there too - however, the libraries are sometimes their only advocates when funding time comes, not the end-user.
Regardless, I'm impressed so far with how much I can make my LibGuides page feel like my library website. Hopefully this translates into value-added by the library. In the future as we try to be "where the patrons are" more and become ubiquitous the problem arises: how to be valuable when you are (rightfully) invisible.
