LibGuides 2

LibGuides is an easy-to-use website platform, which, according to its product home page, is used by many libraries “to curate knowledge and share information by creating online Guides on any topic, subject, course, on any process, on any thing” [1]. It has recently been upgraded to a new version, LibGuides 2, which adds and streamlines features. At the time of writing, all of the new features are not yet available but are expected to roll out over the next few weeks or months. This review will go over some of the new features, both those available now and those still in the works, and will briefly describe the A.T. Still Memorial Library's experience with the migration to LibGuides 2.

The A.T. Still Memorial Library at A.T. Still University of the Health Sciences initially subscribed to the LibGuides website platform in 2010. LibGuides was made available across both campuses of the university, with the library managing the individual user accounts. About a year later, we upgraded to Campus Guides (now called LibGuides content management system [CMS]), which gave us the ability to group our guides into categories, to limit access to individual guides via password or Internet protocol (IP) address, to give individual guides a customized look, and to utilize Java script and cascading style sheets (CSS) coding to further customize guides. For instance, we created a Library Group that contains all the guides published by library staff, including guides with information about educational technology tools available for faculty use through the library, a guide on copyright, and a mobile page with links to library resources. Also, about a year ago, the library decided to issue a quarterly newsletter. We found that LibGuides was the perfect platform for it.

In addition to the library, other campus departments use guides in a variety of ways. For instance, LibGuides is used by academic programs (for admissions information and as an information hub for current students), by faculty (for course sites), and by committees, campus organizations, and academic groups for pages directed toward both internal and external audiences. Users generally use LibGuides to make documents available and to provide links, but the LibGuides platform provides many content options. For example, one academic program uses their guides as a way to post images of conference posters that display the research that the students have conducted.

Ease of use was central to our decision to subscribe to LibGuides. The platforms that were available to us to create websites were simply too complicated and time consuming for the general user to learn. When we give our five-to-ten minute demonstration of LibGuides to someone interested in setting up a site, the most common reaction is, “That's it? It's that simple?”

The changeover to LibGuides 2 has had a similar reception. People have been very happy with the way LibGuides 2 retains the simple elements—the one-click formatting, the clean look, the straightforward way resources can be uploaded and displayed—that were the earlier version's strong point. Despite a few formatting changes, the expanded color choices, and the improved efficacy of making changes have been applauded, though the disappearance of gradient-hued tabs has been lamented. Some changes, such as being able to color individual boxes instead of having to choose a single color for all boxes, are still on the way.

A major change that users have taken to very favorably is the new ability to put different types of content into individual boxes. In LibGuides 1, the user was restricted to a single content type per box: there was a box type for uploading documents, another type for posting links, and another for embedding media, which had to display separately. With LibGuides 2, that restriction has gone away, so users can build their own boxes by choosing from a menu of the various content types. These content types include: rich text/hypertext markup language (HTML), database, links, media/widget, book from the catalog, document/file, really simple syndication (RSS) feed, guide list, poll, and Google Search. So there is quite a variety of content that can now be arranged without the restrictions that sometimes got in the way of effective and balanced site design in LibGuides 1.

Another nice thing about LibGuides 2 is the ability to share assets—such as images, links, and documents—with other users so that they can easily use them in their guides completely within the LibGuides environment, rather than having to transfer those assets from an external file system. This method has worked well for us in sharing links to our library resources, as well as images of electronic book covers, for example.

Also new in LibGuides 2 is a side-navigation option. Instead of having the familiar tabs at the top for navigation to different pages within a guide, the pages can now be listed at the side. If side navigation is used, however, the display of the rest of the page is limited to a single column. It is possible to create a template that changes the display to multiple columns, but doing so requires HTML knowledge. Most of our users are not inclined to make these changes, but some have nevertheless changed over to side navigation because they like the look of it.

Another new feature in LibGuides 2 is a full-width box that can be inserted at the top and bottom of a page if so desired, with the rest of the page formatted with multiple columns. It has proved simple to insert a slideshow of images, a single image, or banner text in this new type of box, options that provide design flexibility that was not available in LibGuides 1, and we have noticed that a number of our users have taken advantage of this feature.

Features that are still to come include ability to embed forms and surveys in LibGuides (available for LibGuides CMS subscribers), a mobile site builder, a hover option for the description of links, and e-reserves functionality.

Our transition to LibGuides 2 went very smoothly. In the latter part of 2013, we were put in a queue of subscribers (determined by when we had signed up for LibGuides) to gain access to a “sandbox site,” where we were able to familiarize ourselves with the new features that were available at that time. We could play around with the new features and create mock sites, but at this point, we could not tell how our old guides would translate to the new version.

There were some delays in the process as LibGuides finalized the coding for the new version. In May 2014, we were able to sign up for migration. This process consisted of copying our LibGuides 1 sites to a beta LibGuides 2 server, where they were rendered with the LibGuides 2 coding, so we could see how our old sites would look, while our LibGuides 1 site remained live for our users. This migration took place on a date of our choosing. We could then review and format the LibGuides 2 renderings of our sites in the way that we wanted them to look. Much of the old formatting, particularly the colors, had been stripped away in the migration. For us, though, all of the previously uploaded content, such as documents and embedded links, migrated without a hitch. This period also let us make use of the new box design, where we could put different content types in the same box and do some tweaking on how our sites were set up. We needed to be aware that if we made updates to our live LibGuides 1 sites, they did not automatically transfer over to the LibGuides 2 sites and vice versa, so we had to be sure to update both. We also made a point of keeping in touch with our users. We decided that we would not go through the final phase until everyone was ready.

Finally, in late June 2014, we made the decision to go through the final phase. This phase consisted of LibGuides transferring the uniform resource locators (URLs) of the LibGuides 1 sites to the new LibGuides 2 sites, so our live URLs would not change. This process was very seamless for us. We notified LibGuides that we were ready and agreed upon a migration date, which was about a week after we had notified them. Because we had a custom URL for our guides, our information technology department had to help with the transfer, a step that is not required for libraries that use generic URLs provided by LibGuides.

The migration took about twenty-four hours to complete. After we went live with LibGuides 2, we retained access to LibGuides 1 sites for three months, after which they will be deleted from the LibGuides server. Overall, we are very happy with LibGuides 2. The transition went very well, and our experience with the new version has been a favorable one.