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ORALL Cool Tools Cafe: The Ins and Outs of LibGuides2: Home

This guide was created for the Cool Tools Cafe at ORALL 2014. It's meant to showcase the features of LibGuides2.

The Law Library Through the Years

Law Library 2014

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Law Library 2014

Welcome!

This guide is meant to illustrate (most of) the features of LibGuides2 (LG2).  Some features, in particular the difference between sidebar and tabbed navigation, cannot be shown in one guide.  For this, check out the More Examples box, just below this box, to see examples of other guides that showcase features not highlighted in this guide.
 

More Examples

Sidebar Navigation:

Compiling State Legislative Histories

Media and Other Embedded Content:

Legal Research Tutorials

More Resources

There are of course many resources out there to give you more information about LG2.  I have created a couple more resources as well, featured here.
 

Boxes in LG2

One of the major changes in LG2 (for anyone familiar with LG1) is the reduction in the number of box types available. Likely the most common is the standard box, which is a simple box that can hold any type of content. When you create a standard box, to add content you click on Add/Reorder and choose the type of content you want to add.  You can add any number of types of content in one box, and you can reorder that content by clicking on Add/Reorder, scrolling to the bottom of the content list, and clicking reorder.  It's then a simple drag-and-drop. 

The types of content available for standard box are listed in the box below.

This box is an example of a tabbed box. A tabbed box is basically a standard box; or, rather, as many standard boxes as you want wrapped into one!  You can add the same content to a tabbed box as to a standard.  The difference being that a tabbed box creates a mini-guide within a box, allowing you to create multiple tabs of content within in one box.

A gallery box is for rotating photos, as seen in the top box, above.

Best Practice: pick photos of the same size; otherwise, as the images rotate, the box will expand and contract accordingly.

Profile boxes are essentially the same as in LG1.  You can see an example to the right.  By default, the guide author's profile box will automatically appear on the first page of new guides, but the author can delete this at will.  You can also add your profile (or another person's in your system to pages of a guide by selecting Profile Box from the box types.  Again, the options will default to the author's box, but you should see drop-down menu to select Other Profiles.

Content in LG2

There's a variety of content options in LG2, as there was in LG1. 

For simple text or to add images, click on the Rich Text/HTML option.  A fairly standard WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor appears.  You can set different styles for your text, create bulleted or numbered lists, tables, etc.  There's even a spell-check.  You can also paste from Word, so if you're planning to do that, make sure you use that option!

Adding links - a variety of options

 

First, there's the in-text link, such as: Google me!  That can be done in the Rich Text/HTML option.  The problem with the in-text links is that, to check their accuracy, you'll have to do so manually.  The Link Checker tool only works on links added through the Links and Databases option.

Let's talk about those for a second.  Springshare has gotten very serious this time around with creating tools for managing links.

  • First, there's the Database option.  This pulls from your universal A-Z List.  This has to be set up by an admin, and allows for standardization of database descriptions, with the option for the guide author to add his/her customized description to accommodate the subject of the guide.  The beauty of the A-Z list is that if the URL changes, the admin can change it in the A-Z list, and the links will be automatically updated in every guide, provided the guide author used the Database option to add the database to the guide.

 

  • Second, there's the Link option.  You can put any link here, including for databases.  When you do so, these links are added to your personal Asset Manager, so if you add them again to another guide or another page, they'll be suggested to you to save time.  These won't change automatically, as with Databases, but broken links will be picked up by the Link Checker.
     
The Best of the Rest - Other Available Content Types

 

  • Books from the Catalog - for an enhanced reading list in your guide
  • Media/Widget - for audio/video files and other embeddable content
  • Guide List- to add links to other guides in your system
  • Google Search - four different Google searches (Web, Scholar, Patent, Book)
  • Poll - to create a basic poll in your LibGuide
  • LibAnswers and LibSurveys content
  • RSS Feed
  • Document/File - most file types accepted

 

Other New and Different Features

What else is there to know about LG2?  A lot, actually; here are some highlights:

  • New: Sidebar versus Tabbed Layout - This guide tries to show you all the features of LG2, but some cannot be shown in one place.  For instance, Sidebar navigation is now available as an alternative to the Tabbed layout, but it limits the columns available, so I couldn't show top and bottom boxes!  There's an example of a side-navigation guide in the More Examples box, in the left column.
  • Different: Column Options - In LG1, you could set custom column widths.  In LG2, you cannot, but you do have more preset column options, from 1 to 4 columns.
  • New: Top and Bottom Boxes - For a little more variety in your layout, you have the option - in Tabbed layout only - to have top and bottom boxes, that span the top or bottom of all columns.  An example of a top box on this guide is the gallery box.
  • New: Next and Previous Arrows - You can add Next and Previous arrows to help viewers navigate your guide.  This is a feature you essentially turn on, from a formatting menu at the top of the screen.
  • New: Shared Images - In LG1, each account had an Image Manager, so if you were adding images to your guide, you could reuse your own images from your other guides pretty easily.  The Image Manager is even better now; you can create multiple folders of images in your personal manager, and admins can add images to a Shared Images folder, so that all accounts can access certain images that get heavily reused in guides.
  • Different: Links - This is talked about in the Content box, to the left, but adding links is a little more sophisticated now, thanks to the increased value of the A-Z list and your personal Asset Manager.  This is described better in the box to the left, but essentially it is worthwhile to have databases added by admins to the A-Z list for better consistency, and reserving Links for other websites.
  • Different: Design - You still have the round-versus-square box and tab design options, but in LG2, you are no longer limited to a set of color schemes for your tabs.  Use whatever hex value suits your fancy!