LibGuides: The Next Generation!

It’s been 6 years since LibGuides was first released and oh, my, what a ride it’s been! Almost 4,000 live sites, 55,000+ librarians using it, hundreds of millions of page views every month, and hundreds of new features introduced since 2007.

We’re in this for the long haul, and behind the scenes we’ve been working on the next generation of LibGuides – the system that will keep things exciting for the next 6 years and then some. We’re changing the innards of the platform to make it easier to customize, easier to manage, easier to use, and easier to create beautiful content. We have so much new stuff to share with you, it’s hard to know where to begin!

We know you’re amped right now, but we also know that some of you may be having minor panic attacks at the extent of the change + your customizations, so we want to put your mind at ease:

This is an opt-in change starting this fall.

You decide the right time for your site to move to the new system.

You take however long you need to plan and execute the move.

In other words, you’ll continue to use your existing LibGuides system, just as you do now, and whenever you decide is the right time for your site to move over to the new platform – this fall or winter, next summer – we’ll make it happen. Your domain, your accounts, your content – everything stays the same in the new system, no worries.

And no, this is not an excuse to change our (awesomely affordable) pricing. This migration will not cost you a dime; our pricing will remain as it is now. The only change is that you’ll get a lot more bang for your buck…and that’s the kind of change we can all get behind. 😉

Breathing again? Super! Now let’s get to the list o’ goodies! 😀
(The big stuff, at least. There are literally hundreds of new features and enhancements we’ll share through our newsletter and emails to admins over the summer.)

• Redesigned UI
  From the back end admin screens to the front end public view, it’s all getting a facelift. The new LibGuides is 100% jQuery and Bootstrap. That means fantabulous stuff like:
  • Responsive, bootstrap-based layouts.
  • More layout options – no more 1-2-3 column restrictions.
  • Easily customizable CSS tabs (no longer image based!).
  • Streamlined admin menu that follows you around whether you’re on your Dashboard or editing a guide.
  • Streamlined guide editing with in-context menus/options. For example, add a new page by simply clicking the + tab to the right of the rest of your pages!
  • 20 different box types making things confusing? Not anymore – we’re down to 3 box types (general, tabbed box, and lightbox). W00t!
  • Wait, what, only 3? How are we going to do anything with just 3? (Trust us, you’ll LOVE the 3.)
    • How often did you want to mix text, links, embedded content, documents, headers, etc. all in one box?
      Well, with the new LibGuides, you can with the general box type. Limitations be gone!
      Add sections of links with headings without CSS tomfoolery…it’s infinitely flexible.
    • Wait, wait, wait – a tabbed box?? You got it! Create tabs inside boxes and add whatever content you want – it’s super easy point and click construction.
    • Hold up, now – a lightbox? Like, for content slideshows or carousel-type image rotating goodness? That’s the one! Creating beautiful and dynamic content has never been easier.
  • Did you ever want your boxes to span columns? C’mon, you know you did…we know you did…and with the new LibGuides, you can!
  • You say you want to automatically embed Previous & Next buttons inside your guides? Sure, why not! It’s all right there, in the new LibGuides.
  • I’m sure you’re noticing a theme by now: flexibility. The new LibGuides is flexible – it will adjust to your needs, whatever they are.
• More Admin Stuffs!
  We didn’t forget the site admins in our awesome-ifying, either! Here are a few things admins will be thankful for:
  • Centralized asset management (links, documents, embedded content, etc.): view, manage, edit, reuse…all in one place.
  • An automatically generated A-Z subscription database link guide. Say whaaat? Yup, the A-Z guide is a standard part of LibGuides now and is automatically generated to boot! You specify which items should be on the A-Z guide, associate subjects, and voilà: an A-Z guide that is a joy to use and maintain. 🙂
  • Publishing workflows (optional) – guide authors “submit for review”, admins approve the guide for publishing.
  • Redesigned API – anything stored in LibGuides will be accessible via API, so you can reuse that content anywhere else. LibGuides becomes your content store for your assets and tracks their cumulative use; you distribute them anywhere and everywhere…in or outside of your LibGuides site. 🙂
  • Fully customizable guide templates – write your own HTML template, inserting special keywords where you want the guide title, description, author info, content boxes, etc. It’s as awesome as it sounds, trust us on this one!
• Redesigned Search
  Yes, we know. The LibGuides search can be made better, it’s a comment we heard quite often. So, we’re thrilled to share the great news – we redesigned our search from scratch using Solr on the back end, so this thing is powerful – really powerful – and offers features like:
  • Customized search term weighting.
  • Faceted search options.
  • Search history (for admins – think QuerySpy in LibAnswers) – see what users are searching in LibGuides (anonymously, of course) and whether they’re finding what they’re looking for.
  • And we have plans to enable sites to tweak the relevance ranking for your site’s search. Stay tuned for more on this later this summer.

  Want more? Okay! How about indexing your LibAnswers site in LibGuides so your FAQs show up alongside your guides? If you just said “sa-WEET!”, that is correct. 😉 (We’re amped about this for our Help site!)

*Whew* That was a lot to get through! And that was just the big stuff…

Whether or not you’re going to ALA, you need to check out the latest SpringyNews for:

• Lists of upcoming features for LibGuides (refresh) and LibAnswers (yes, LibAnswers, too!),
• deets on what you can expect functionality-wise for the upcoming release of LibAnalytics Insight,
• and a whole lot of great information about the Springshare Community, including the article “5 Ways Into the Springy Community”.