We are very pleased to announce the release of several important new features in LibGuides. As a true web application, LibGuides is a “work in progress” and we are adding new functionality to the system all the time, based on the feedback and requests from our user community. This is, among other things, one of the perks our institutions get for the annual license – they are always assured the latest and greatest in features and technology in their LibGuides system.
The features we are announcing today are rather significant so we will have separate blog posts explaining each new feature. Here is a short overview:
- Improved guide layout, based on feedback from students and librarians. The links to the institution’s homepage and to LibGuides home are now in the upper left corner, just below the banner, in a “breadcrumb” style. The search box has been moved to the center of the page, making it more prominent and easier to notice. Finally, we have added Addthis.com’s “share” widget to the right of the search box, which enables users to easily bookmark/email any guide or post it to digg/facebook/del.icio.us and a number of other sites.
- New System-wide options for comments moderation. There are now three modes for moderating comments in LibGuides. These are available to LibGuides Administrators via the system-wide customization options screen (for admins, go to System Settings -> System-wide customization).
a) Enabled – the same as current mode, i.e. users can post comments directly and the page owner gets an email when a new comment is posted;
b) Moderated – when a user posts a comment, the page owner (or an editor, or an admin) has to approve the comment before it is posted on the page;
c) Disabled – comments are disabled system-wide. - Guide Index – easily accessible list of all private/unpublished/published guides available from the admin screen. When you log on to the main admin functions you will notice a new “Guide Index” tab – click on it to see the list of all guides in the system, filtered by their publication status.
- New “Remote Scripts” box type. This box type enables you to run remote scripts and have the output of your remote script displayed inside the box. Yes, you heard right! We are very excited about this new box type as it opens a new world of possibilities for displaying all types of external content inside LibGuides content boxes. Librries techies rejoice – now you can mix and match content in LibGuides and have your guides become a true portals for users to find information from many sources, including your own library systems.
- 3rd (profile) column content boxes. Now you can add content boxes below the profile box (or in place of the profile box if it is hidden). This gives additional flexibility and more screen space for your content. It is especially useful for LibGuides-as-a-website systems.
Please look for our upcoming blog posts for the in-depth explanations of these features. As always, I’d like to thank our user community and our clients for the great feedback and suggestions which resulted in this new release and, last but not least, thanks to our tech guys who made it all happen.
UPDATE: Here are the links to the individual, in-depth, posts: Improved Guide Layout, New Options for Moderating Comments in LibGuides, “Guide Index” Tab for LibGuides users, “Remote Script” LibGuides Content Box, and Third Column (Profile Column) Content Boxes in LibGuides