Here are the minutes from the last LibGuides Advisory Committee Meeting1 (Friday, February 6):
- Should the new GovDocs site (multiple guides) be a subject or a Group?
- The committee felt that the “Subject” list should adhere as closely as possible to the academic disciplines of the University. The Groups feature in LibGuides would allow the GovDocs site to have the same structure as a Subject, without changing the homepage taxonomy. We did discuss how to better lead folks to Government Documents, but it was noted that GovDocs is not really on the homepage now, and no one browses through to GovDocs from LibGuides. We also suggested several “Best Bets” for Summon to help folks searching for GovDocs. I’ve since spoken with Elizabeth about working on ways to enhance the discoverability of the Gov Docs site, so we’ll be meeting about that in the future.
- Expunge RefWorks links and centralize the “Citing Sources” information
- I’ll do an audit to find all RefWorks mentions, as well as any individual “Citing Sources” boxes. We’ll recommend to folks that the use a version of the master Citing Sources guide, rather than creating their own, for ease of maintenance.
- LibGuides Database A-Z List updates and scheduling
- We talked through the current project to migrate from our home-grown Database A-Z list into the LibGuides list. There are (at least) three reasons we wanted to do this:
- Consistency - Databases already exist in LibGuides, so having an easier way to manage them there was desired
- Ease for Librarians - better workflow for updating and maintaining the ever changing links and proxies for databases.
- CMS migration - We’re migrating to a new version of the CMS, and the home-grown database A-Z list isn’t coming with us, so we need a replacement.
- Jeff is currently working through the list to standardize and update every database entry. He just finished letter F, and says he can definitely have them done before Spring Break. The reason the list is out of date after migration is that LibGuides took the information from the first instance of a database link, and used that to populate all of the descriptions, URLs, etc. for all instances of the database. This means that while Jeff is working through the list, changes to descriptions on folks’ LibGuides will happen. Some of the updated descriptions will be longer than the ones they displace, so this could lead to some visual changes in Guides (as happened with Kim). Talked about:
- Jeff may contact liaisons as needed to help get appropriate descriptions.
- I will float the two switchover dates by all LG owners: Spring Break or between semesters. Again, want to minimize the time ERMS had to maintain two lists, as long as it won’t affect users too much. UPDATE we’ve decided after feedback to switch between semesters.
- Custom descriptions can override the default description. If you want to keep the descriptions you have, you can copy what you have to the custom description field.
- Soon, Springshare will update the assets structure to allow us to customize more parts of the assets: title, description, etc.
- Might look into making the database subject pages either replace the LibGuides subject pages or redirect to the librarian-created database pages. This is partially dependent on librarians having permissions to manage the subject associations for databases themselves.
- I also mentioned the research that VCU did on the Database list, and promised to send along the post: http://erinrwhite.com/easier-access-for-databases-and-research-guides-at-vcu-libraries/
- I’m including here the steps Jeff and I outlined for the Database A-Z migration, for reference (there is more than just what Jeff is doing):
- Ensure all databases are listed in LibGuides WITH correct titles, descriptions, types (i.e. formats), and URLs (let LibGuides handle the proxying for easier maintenance by you guys) [Responsible: ERMS]
- Comb through all of the “non-database” assets to find things that actually are databases and get them mapped to the correct database link. [Responsible: Matt?]
- Offer some training to R&I and other LibGuides owners on assets. [Responsible: Matt & LibGuides Committee]
- Check in with Springshare about the changes coming to assets. Don’t want to do too much from #3 on until those are live. [Responsible: Matt - UPDATE, new go-live date is late January early February]
- Develop timeline to replace the old list. (Spring break? After this semester? When would we go live with LG as the only list?. Want to minimize the time we have to maintain 2 lists) [Responsible: Matt, LG Committee, R&I, & ERMS - UPDATE we’ll switch between semesters]
- Set up URL redirects from the old list. (How to handle the old database links - redirect them to the new database page?) [Responsible: Matt and IM Web Team]
- Other
- A lot of talk about portfolios and assets within those portfolios. This will be discussed at the ULFA meeting in March, I believe.
Tabled for the next meeting:
- What to do about our 13,7002 assets