LibGuides 2.0 

We're very excited to start the new year with the new and improved LibGuides system. Much of the LibGuides feature development is a direct result of suggestions and feedback from our user base, so keep up the great work and continue letting us know what you want to see in LibGuides. Many of you will recognize your suggestions and ideas below, which are included in this new version.

The homepage has been redesigned to include more portal-like functionality for users' research needs.

• The left column enables users to browse LibGuides content by subjects (or by authors)
• The LibGuides administrator can (optionally) define the list of featured guides which will show up on the homepage. If no featured guides are defined, the homepage will default to "most popular" list
• There is a custom content box in the upper right corner. The administrator can define this box to include any text they want - news, announcements, links, etc. This box is optional, i.e. if it is not defined, nothing will show.
• The color of the box headings can be customized (in hex value) to match your institution's color scheme.
• LibGuides admin can select a specific user to be featured as "Featured Librarian", or the system can pick a random user.

The LibGuides administrator can define the list of subjects (or categories) and then guide owners can associate their guide with a particular subject. The administrator can also associate any guide with any number of subject categories. The subjects will appear on the homepage so users can find content by browsing categories - the way they are traditionally used to on library websites.

The new system gives you more flexibility in customizing the look and feel of your LibGuides system, i.e:

• Full control over header, to include image maps, forms, etc. in the top banner
• Full control over footer, although we recommend that you do not change the text of the footer because it contains the link to the tech support form and to the ADA-version of pages. The footer customization is ideally suited to insert the web-page tracking code for gathering statistics, i.e. Google Analytics, Statcounter and the like
• Custom color of the text headers for the homepage and public pages.
• Ability to "lock" the look and feel of all guides for uniform look across the system. The admin will be able to define the color scheme for tabs and boxes which will override any individual guide owner's color choice. This will ensure that all guides in your system have the same look & feel, if you want it.

I am not sure how we (and you) ever lived without these in LibGuides, but  the new version features floating dialog boxes for all "actionable" operations. Gone are the days of gray-out screens due to slow loading, and inability to move the pop-ups on the screen. These new dialog boxes are much improved, prettier, more usable, better... You'll love them. To borrow a line from the famed "Geico cavemen" commercial, "Sorry we couldn't get it to you sooner".

The individual guides have the following new features:

• Guide owner can define up to 3 "editors" of their guides. Editors have full editing privileges (i.e. they can add and delete any content on the guide).
• Associate a guide with a subject category.
• "Last updated" date. The users will see when the guide was last updated. This will show next to guide title, in the "user view".
• You can rename the "Home" tab, and there is now an option to define an "external" tab, i.e. a tab that points to an external webpage (or another LibGuides page)
• Copy tab. Just like you can copy a guide and copy a content box within the system, you can now copy another (existing) page into the guide you are working on
• "Books" content box type which enables you to define any number of books and associate information to it (Author/Editor, Call no., link to the book in your catalog (or to another site like amazon, worldcat, etc.)
• "User Link Submissions" content box type which, when added to your page, enables users to post suggested links inside of it.
• Ability to convert "text" content box type into any other type, and convert "simple links" boxes to "info links".
• Wider profile box to accommodate regular-sized meebo widgets. Many, if not most, of our librarians embed meebo widgets into their profiles, which is a great way to interact with your users if they need help. We have widened the profile box a bit to enable you to embed regular-sized (190 pixels) meebo boxes, for more prominence and more space for users to type their questions.

In the "System Settings" the administrator can define a URL for the database proxy server. Then, in the "info links" content box type, whenever a user adds a new link they can check "prepend proxy url" checkbox, which will prepend the link defined in the proxy url to the link entered by the user.

For example, if the admin defines proxy URL as http://proxy.myschool.edu:8215/login?url=  and the guide owner goes to add a link on their page using the "Info links" content box type, they add a link to Lexis Nexis e.g. http://lexis-nexis.com AND check the "prepend proxy url" checkbox, then the link that will be presented to the user will be http://proxy.myschool.edu:8215/login?url=http://lexis-nexis.com

This way, whenever your proxy url changes you can just update this one field in the system settings and all proxied links in LibGuides will change accordingly.

 

We have eliminated the middle-man (i.e. us) and now the LibGuides administrator can re-assign guides from one user to another user in your system.

We are releasing our first version of ada-compliant public pages suitable for screen readers. The link to the text version will be available in the footer of homepage, profile pages, and all guide pages. This is sort of a "beta" functionality, i.e. it is not perfect yet but it is an important step in ensuring that LibGuides pages comply with ADA regulations. We will continue improving on this and your feedback is most welcome.

Due to the complexity of some of the new features below we are not able to include it in this release but all of this will be put into production in the next month or so. Note that they will not affect the look and feel of your system, or have impact on the users, these are improvements and enhancements mostly on the admin/librarian side of things.

• Improved widgets. Much improved! A lot more options in terms of content selection and customization/size.
• PDF creation of guides. Librarians (and users) will be able to create a PDF version of any guide in the system
• RSS/API. We're working on make it easier for you to include libguides content into other applications. RSS/API is one way to do it and this will be a continued work in progress after the release of the initial RSS/API functionality
• LibGuides community site - a website for librarians which aggregates all libguides content, giving you an easy and convenient way to search and browse libguides at other institutions and find inspiration, ideas, and collaboration across the LibGuides universe.
• Better usage statistics for individual guides as well for the entire system (for administrators).