This past weekend our friends at Serials Solutions announced that custom database names are available via their API, so we are now able to import those custom values into LibGuides!
The way it works is as follows – if your resource has been assigned a custom name in the Serials Solutions interface, we will import the resource into LibGuides using that custom name. For any resources that do not have a custom name assigned, we will use the default resource name provided by Serials Solutions as we have done in the past.
If you have already imported your resource list and would like to update your existing links to use the custom names, just run the A-Z import tool from within LibGuides and be sure to check the box for all links you wish to update. Any links that were previously imported using the default name will be updated to use your local, custom name – it couldn’t be easier! 🙂
If you’d like to learn more about this tool, check out our guide: A-Z Resource List Management
I am a newbie when it comes to LibGuides. I have successfully imported my resource A-Z list and noticed that the imported URLs are not the referral URLs used by my library system. I believe we can change that by adding our referral URLs to the Serial Solutions Knowledgeworks base, can’t we?
Is there a way to edit the A-Z list like any other LibGuide? If so, can anybody point me in the right direction as far as where to find online help?
I believe that you are correct in thinking that if you replace the URLs in your Serials Solutions client center, those will be the URLs pulled into your LibGuides site. You might try changing one (keeping the original URL handy somewhere) and then run the import again in LibGuides – see if that URL updates.
You absolutely can edit the A-Z guide however you want! It’s a guide like any other guide in your system, so you can move boxes around, reorder pages, add additional content (pages, boxes, links)…anything you want! The important part is: you must have 27 properly named boxes in your guide (A, B, C, … Y, Z, #). As long as those boxes exist, you can do anything else you want to the guide.
We have a whole guide dedicated to this tool: A-Z Resource List Management. That guide will take you through running the import, modifying the guide, and re-running the import to update your list. It also includes examples of other sites who’ve used the import tool and then modified their guides – that’s on the “Add More to Your A-Z Guide” page.
If you have any other questions, please let us know: training (at) springshare (dot) com