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LibGuides: An Introduction and How-to-Guide: What Are LibGuides?: Getting Started

LibGuides - A World of Help!

Because Springshare has so carefully documented best practices of working with LibGuides, this guide seeks to add only a few methods which have been helpful and were a little difficult to find explained on their site.

Many college libraries have published LibGuides describing the best way to create LibGuides.  This is a good one from Jackson State University.

Consider What Motivates the Viewer

LibGuides are a tool for students doing research but, also, a way to market library resources and services to faculty and the broader learning community.  The most appealing LibGuide authors paid close attention to the factors of Attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction in their guides. John Keller developed the acronym and has information relevant to an ARCS theory of motivation.

A Attention - Techniques used to draw "attention" to LibGuides included graphics, images, videos and interesting page layouts.
R

Relevance - Some LibGuides are designed to help studnts with a specific assignment or course and some appeal to a broad spectrum of users.
C Confidence - All LibGuides include an email or phone number to allow students to ask for additional help.  Some LibGuides take students through an assignment step-by-step and even include a "panic button" which leads to additional steps or resources.
S Satisfaction - Carefully organized LibGuides direct students to the most pertinent information on a topic.  Some give the viewer additional intriguing or inspiring resources.

A brief summary of the model can be found here.

"Mining" the Community for Best Ideas

To access the "best ideas" in the LibGuide Community, follow these steps:

  • Log in to LibGuides.
  • Click "Create a guide - copy content - Community - Subject Area
  • Look for recent guides
  • If you want to copy aspects of a guide, ask permission of the author (click on the name and notic the email address in the "download" corner of the computer screen.

 

Using the a Template

When creating a guide, copy the template and rename it.  See "how to copy a page".