1. LibGuiding the way: new directions at the University of Bolton
Sarah Taylor
Electronic Resources Librarian

2. LibGuiding the way: today’s session The problem Back in time
Understanding our user behaviour by looking at enquiries
The project, design process and end result
Using guides
Impact of guides
Future developments

3. LibGuides: ten years of the dynamic guide
Holistic approach to access help required to recognise that electronic resources access has many elements (Erb and Erb, 2014).
Basic principle of LibGuides is that it takes the paper guide and makes it electronic, and as the Internet has grown, these paper guides have been embedded on websites (i.e. the paper versions are digitised) and are often static as a result (Giullian and Zitser, 2015).
LibGuides represent “the democratization of the Internet” (Erb and Erb, 2014) as it allows librarians to create and maintain library web pages with little or no web authoring expertise and creating an explosion of online library guides

4. Once upon a time…

5. October 2008: Hadron Collider and Obama
Types of databases listed first (with no information), rather than actual databases
Linking out, rather than providing information
No explanation of what the databases contain, or why use them
Need to go back in time so see where we’ve been. This was the picture nine years ago (the year I started at Bolton – in face today I my nine-year anniversary!).
This was how we were directing our students to access electronic resources.

6. October 2008 Linking out rather than providing information
Subject-specific information is in the form of a workbook, but the purpose of workbook is unclear
Not clear that the link to electronic journals is a link to a list where titles must be searched for

7. May 2012: in training
Information about what all these resource types are
The concept of a workbook has been changed to Database User Guide
Linking out: “more information” is useful, but it is not clear how to access the resources
Moving on four years – to the year of the London Olympics - and we can see lots of changes. If you click on the databases link you now get a description of the databases, i.e. content, access.

8. July 2015: a comprehensive approach
Access from here
Detailed descriptions of databases with recommendations
Links to further sources of help (Quick Start Guides and a video)
Tabs to separate resource types
Three years later and this is huge leap.
But is it enough…?

9. July 2015: a comprehensive approach?
We need to be able to understand the impact of the way in which we provide information. We can look at subject librarian referrals via our Subject Help Desk? Huge proportion of the queries are relatively basic, the type of query that should be answered by the website. Small number of study skills queries.

10. Implementing LibGuides
Understand the issues, create the vision and be mindful of the “mishmash” of thought between creators and users (Gessner et al, 2015)
Undertaken during the summer of 2016 and branded as Subject Guides
Sought examples of best practice, but are very much tailored to feedback already received and what we already knew about how our users wanted to access resources and information about services in general
Each course has its own guide; the idea is that students have a directed focus, rather than having to visit pages related to a broad range of topics: a new approach
Consistent yet subject-specific

11. The LibGuide: take 1

12. The LibGuide: take 1
Linking out to other places instead of presenting actual information
Databases! Journal articles!
Jargon
What are Subject Resources?
Looks like BISSTO is the only service (“Looks great… what’s BISSTO?”)
Previous slide showed what I turned my notes into.
Guess what I’d done? I’d created the same but using different software. I’d applied every principle I wanted to avoid, and that I knew was not working.

13. Ask no questions
The more content is added, the greater the need for granularity of structure: if the question is “Where can I find…?” then there is a lack of clarity.
Subject guides should be compact in nature (Dalton and Pan, 2014); help guides are more significant in content. Using LibGuides allows these to be presented together, and this is a key principle.
Our students sometimes think that “electronic resources” are different to electronic information sources, i.e. journals and articles.
All academic content is academic content: there is no difference between electronic and print sources because that is merely the format, and in no way indicative of the academic suitability of the content.
Where I got to was this: ask no questions. If you have to ask, it isn’t clear.
Where we want to go to is that last point on the list: all academic content is academic content.

14. Using guides: the numbers game
Subject Guides were made available in September 2016; a small number of Help Guides have been made live since
Since then, there have been over 12,700 views of the Subject Guides homepage (i.e. the complete list of guides linked to from the Library website)
97 live guides have been viewed a total of 31,456 times as of 1st August 2017
The most popular (i.e. most viewed) guide has been viewed over 8,500 times since it was made available in September 2016

15. Top page after Starting Point
Use of Subject Guides: top 10 guides
Data correct as of 1st August 2017
Guide
Views
Top page after Starting Point
Law
4010
Databases, journals and articles*
Health and Social Care
1041
Databases, journals and articles
Business Management
997
Nursing
824
Psychology
798
Civil Engineering
796
Education
760
District Nursing
748
Art and Design
558
Accountancy
528
Top 10. Those with an asterisk show that in these cases, that was the top page overall.

16. How do we know what we don’t know?: email enquiries
2016/15
2016/17
Total queries: 81
Total queries: 62
Electronic resource-related s: 51 (63%)
Electronic resource-related s: 41 (66%)
“How do I…”
“I can’t do…”
“What can I…”
“I have a problem with…”
“I need help with…”
“This isn’t working…”
“Where do I find…”
“I’m not sure about this feature…”

17. How do we know what we don’t know?: enquiries
E-resource related queries:
15/16: 71 per cent of total
16/17: 58 per cent of total
Change:
55 per cent decrease
Study skills queries:
15/16: 12 per cent of total
16/17: 9 per cent of total
25 per cent decrease
These are referrals from the desk

18. Reaching further with guides: Research Support
One of eight live Help Guides to date
Completely new content: includes a Guide for Researchers (downloadable leaflet), but also covers open access and REF compliancy, institutional repository, Research Data Management, sharing research and measuring impact.
Linked directly the from Library homepage: no navigation required.
Over 2,200 views this academic year making this one of the most popular guides overall
Most popular sections are Research at the University of Bolton and Referencing and Managing Research.

19. Reaching further with guides: next steps
Consider usability across a range of student types and survey users (via LibGuides!)
Use this work to improve visual presentation of content, for example, consider students’ experiences of social media and how this might translate into expectations for how a guide might look (Conerton and Goldenstein, 2017).
Create a comprehensive range of Help Guides and Resource Guides that acknowledge variations in learning styles.
Create Staff Guide to provide detail on resources and resource acquisition, usage of resources and user education, for example.

20. Bibliography
Conerton, K. and Goldenstein, C. (2017) Making LibGuides works: student interviews and usability tests. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 22(1), pp
Dalton, M. and Pan, R. (2014) Snakes or Ladders? Evaluating a LibGuides pilot at UCD Library. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 40(5), pp
Erb, R. and Erb, B. (2014) Leveraging the LibGuides platform for electronic resources access assistance. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 26(3), pp
Gessner, G. et all (2015) Are you reaching your audience? The intersection between LibGuide authors and LibGuide users. Reference Services Review, 43(3), pp
Giullian, J. and Zitser, E. (2015) Beyond LibGuides: the past, present and future of online research guides. Slavic and East European Information Resources, 16(4), pp
Ream, T. and Parker-Kelley, D. (2016) Expanding library services and instruction through LibGuides. Medical and Reference Services Quarterly, 35(3), pp
Sontesby, A. and DeJonge, J. (2013) Usability testing, user-centred design, and LibGuides Subject Guides: a case study. Journal of Web Librarianship, 7(1), pp