We recently came across a post from Sara at the world famous Tactless Librarian blog, that presents an interesting use for LibGuides. Sara has been creating research guides for course-specific instruction sessions held at the library. These “class shortcut pages” contain all the information presented during the instruction session, including reference tools, polls, and of course links to those expensive subscription databases:
“One database, Literary Reference Center, got 80 hits that month from my LibGuide alone. If I had done my typical session the students would have forgotten the database and gone to Academic Search Premier because it was the first on our list of databases.”
To help promote these instruction sessions Sara has been providing faculty with links to specific shortcut pages, which are then embedded into the campus courseware system. In addition to reinforcing the lessons learned during the instruction session, this also creates an excellent integration point for the library’s online reference program:
“The guide solved a variety of problems. First, it allowed us to link to a Meebo chat … with the librarian who made the guide if they put a Meebo box in. Any guide made with our reference account gets the Ask A Librarian box because it’s on that profile.”
It is great to see librarians finding new ways to use LibGuides, and Sara’s approach to course-specific research guides is definitely one worth mentioning. You can read her original post, as well as leave your own comments and questions, at
http://www.librarygirl.org/wordpress/archives/97.