LibGuides 2.1.8 Update

It’s an exciting week – a new month is starting, school has started / is starting, and we’re getting another LibGuides release ready for you! As usual, there are some big things, some small-but-big-impact things, and some bug fixes coming your way. This release is currently slated to go out on Wednesday, September 2, 2015.

LTI Updates

There is some great new functionality coming out for LTI, but don’t worry – all of the functionality currently available will still be available. The two new options are:

• E-Reserves Courses: Embed a course from your LibGuides E-Reserves module right into a course site. Course readings right where they need to be – with the rest of the course information!
• Full LibGuide > Select Matching Guides(s) By Their Metadata (a.k.a. Smart Search): An automated function, where a field in your LMS is related to a Metadata field in your LibGuides system and tool does the rest of the work: matches the two fields and returns the right guide link(s) to your LMS. There’s even a Failover URL option – if there are no matches to guides in your system, users will still see a useful page vs. a 404 error.This function allows LMS Administrators to add the tool to the base course shell, so it’s added to all courses, without any additional work on their part. On the part of the librarians / guide authors, all you need to do is add the proper Metadata information to your guides, and voilà! They’re automagically pulled into the appropriate class(es) in your LMS.

More information about both of these options will be available in our LTI guide shortly.

We also made a little change to the way links work in guides embedded via LTI / widgets:

1. Guide navigation links open in the current window.
2. Links to content contained on the current page (e.g., box links in side-nav), open in the current window.
3. All other links (external links in content boxes, navigation configured with a redirect URL) open in a new window.

Internal Discussion Boards (CMS only)

Ever need a place to have a convo about your system or about a guide and end up having it in email? Email no more! With Internal Discussion Boards, you get:

• one system-level board that all account holders have access to, so you can have those internal discussions, and
• one guide-level board for each guide in your system, where folks who have access to the guide can talk about things relating to that guide!

This is fantastic for the Publishing Workflow or for guide convos in general – instead of having to have conversations about the guide via email, you can have it in the guide’s Discussion Board!

Discussions can be marked as Questions, too, so you can ask questions and mark the Best Answer from the replies you receive. On Discussions that aren’t marked as Questions, you can mark a reply as Helpful, making it stand out on the page. Opt-in to emails to follow a Discussion and always be in the know on new replies, even if you don’t comment on the thread itself!

We have a help guide in the works with all of the details – it’ll be linked here as soon as it’s ready.

Other Additions, Modifications & Fixes

• Sorting, including exclusion of initial articles: Sort books, links, Databases, files, and E-Reserves items…and it ignores a, an, and the to boot!
• Language Options Labels: We added labels for the “All” filter on the A-Z page, “View More Results” in Widgets, and everything on the E-Reserves form. Everything. (For those of you who have translated for us in the past – or would like to help us out – we could use some help translating these new options!)
• Statistics:
  • Publication Status filter has been added to the “All Guides” filter options. (Note: this filter only relates to the guide’s current status.)
  • Older LibGuides v1 statistics (monthly stats, prior to July 1, 2012) are accessible in your v2 system stats.
• E-Reserves (yes, more!):
  • New E-Reserves link in Dashboard LibGuides Shortcuts box – only visible if the user has access to the E-Reserves area. If an Editor level user only has access to E-Reserves, that is the only link that will appear in that box.
  • Courses Screen: Course password now visible in the table.
  • Course Management Screen:
    • Sort items in folders, or folders themselves, by title.
    • If the default area of the page (outside of all folders) is empty, it does not display on the public side.
  • Items Screen:
    • New Item Type! Instructor Files, for syllabi, etc., that faculty would like to upload to their course.
    • Article Item Type: New field – DOI.
    • Item password now visible in the table.
  • Requests: Delete individual Requests.
  • Settings: Set the default list for er.php (Courses, Instructor, etc.).
• New Widget: Thanks to LTI, we have a new E-Reserves Course widget!
• Customer Type: This field has been moved out of LibGuides > Admin > System Settings into LibApps > Admin > Manage Customer Record.
• We’ve updated to FontAwesome 4.4.
• LibApps: The My Account screen now lists all sites where you have accounts along with your account level and that system’s admin.
• Fixes:
  • A-Z page filters are no longer blank on mobile devices.
  • Subject & Tag links in the guide info pane (on the homepage list of guides) now work properly.
  • Email Me Label: Label updates everywhere when changed in Language Options area.
  • Add Box / Add to Group was adding to the bottom rather than the chosen location. It now adds to the proper location.
  • Statistics:
    • Regular level account users can now see page referrers.
    • Regular & Editor level users can now get to E-Reserves stats.
  • Templates: content_box_boxID keyword no longer displays on all pages when set to only display on the homepage.
  • E-Reserves: “Related Guides” box only shows Published guides in the list.
  • Guide Editors (CMS fix): If the guide is in a group and you add a guide editor who does not (yet) have access to that group, the process of adding them as a Guide Editor also adds them to the group.