Graduating Librarians, Information Professionals, and School Media Specialists are entering a workplace that requires more and more specialized skills, knowledge, and experience. Things like:
- Experience at building a LibGuide;
- Knowledge of administering & maintaining a LibGuides system;
- Skill in using virtual chat reference tools like LibChat;
- Know-how with coordinating, managing, and advertising library events;
- Expertise in building and creating interactive instructional tutorials.
At Springshare, we recognize that Librarians-in-Training are the future <cue cheesy music> of Librarianship and we want to help them be as prepared as possible for what’s to come!
To that end, we’re offering a free Suite of Springshare Tools to any and all LIS Programs, School Media Specialist certification programs, or M.Ed Programs, and others. If you’re not sure your school or program qualifies, just fill out the form below and inquire!
With your LIS Suite, students will gain real-world experience using Springshare Tools. Furthermore, it can serve as a living and online archive of their student work – invaluable to future employers.
What’s in the LIS Suite of Springshare Tools?
Each LIS Suite comes with the following Springshare tools and you’re welcome to choose one, a few, or all of the tools to utilize within your program. You don’t need to get the entire Suite if you don’t need it! But, we think you might like to make use of all the tools in your proverbial toolkit!
LibGuides CMS: Students learn to curate knowledge and build multimedia-rich guides by:
- Creating subject, course, or topical Guides
- Creating a mock ‘Library Website’
- Learning about Bootstrap in a user-friendly environment
- Creating a mock ‘Staff Policies & Procedures’ manual
LibWizard: Students learn to create interactive tutorials, quizzes, surveys, and forms to engage patrons by:
- Building self-paced interactive tutorials and assessments
- Assessing patron learning with quizzes
- Creating engaging feedback surveys
- Replacing paper forms with mobile-friendly online forms
LibAnswers Platform: Students develop their virtual reference and reference interview skills by:
- Practicing a live chat exchange using LibChat
- Creating media-rich FAQs and learning best practices for keyword optimization
- Practicing their reference interview via email, SMS, Twitter, and more
LibCal: Students learn how to create engaging library programming and events, manage space bookings, and create their own one-on-one consultation scheduler by:
- Practicing creating a library calendar with engaging events
- Communicating and advertising events to patrons
- Managing library spaces, study rooms, and bookable spaces
- Creating their own schedule for librarian consultations and advertising them to patrons
Terms of Use – All the Fun Without the Jargon
- Your LIS Suite of Springshare Tools may only be used within your library school, educational, or certification program to train future librarians and information professionals on the use of Springy Tools.
- You / your designated group of local admins are front-line support for any questions your students or faculty have about using Springshare tools. They / you can have full access to our help documentation and training, but all support questions from students/faculty are routed through you. Basically, you know them better than we do so it makes sense for their questions to be answered locally!
- If you / your designated group of local admins have questions or need to report any issues, contact Springshare Support.
Since the V1 servers will be retiring in a January, when will V2 be available in the library school sandbox?
Hi Ellen!
Great question. We’re strongly encouraging LIS institutions to request their own suite of Springy Tools to be used locally and in-house, via the link above. So, I’d strongly recommend you start there.
In regards to the following statement, any v1 LibGuides will need to be redone from scratch?
“Library School Sandbox (LibGuides v1): http://libraryschool.libguidescms.com Content created on this v1 system cannot be migrated to your v2 LIS Suite due to versioning incompatibility. You’ll need to recreate all content created on this site in your v2 LIS Suite manually.”
Also, what is recommended for those who have already graduated from their library science programs? Will they not be able to access the library school sandbox at all?
Hi Lauren! Excellent question! We do have a Portfolio system that we can give you access to! You’ll be able to recreate any LibGuides you created when you were in the LIS Program on this site! Simply contact us as: https://ask.springshare.com and we’ll get that setup for you.
Best,
Springy Talia
Where does the LIS Suite of Springshare Tools actually reside? Does the university need to designate a server or can the suite be downloaded on a personal computer or is it on Springshare servers? When completing the request form, I noticed that an administrator needs to be designated. Should this person be someone from the university IT department or is the program on Springshare servers so that any LIS faculty can access it? I need to know if I can make a request as an individual faculty member or do I need to go through official channels? It will definitely make a difference at our university. Thank you for your time.
Hi Dr. Krueger!
All Springshare tools are cloud-based, meaning we host them on our servers and you access them online. So, there’s no server hosting or hardware to maintain – we take care of all that. Regarding a system admin, it just means the point person from our end who is in ‘charge’ of your suite of tools. This way, if we need to contact you all, this would be our main point of contact. Additionally, if there are any questions internally – local staff would ask your site admin first before coming to us for help. It helps to keep all the communication centralized. Let us know if this answers your questions!
Happy New Year!
Best,
Springy Talia
Thank you for your response. This information is helpful and answered my questions. Happy New Year!
Hello,
I’m currently in the LIS program and my institution says I already have an account with the latest LibGuide site. However, when I click on the Home button (https://lisdemo.libapps.com/libguides/admin.php) I see the message that “we are decommissioning this site in favor of the LIS Suite program”. Since my institution replied that I already have an account, could you provide the domain to log into the LIS Suite?
Thank you,
Hi Gregory –
We are currently decommissioning lisdemo.libguides.com site, which is a shared system that library schools around the country all shared, in favor of each individual library school getting their own unique system. I would recommend contacting your library school directly to see if they have installed their own personal LibGuides system. For example, here’s the one for the University of Rhode Island’s GSLIS Program: https://urilis.libguides.com. Your institution can request their own personal LibGuides system here: https://buzz.libwizard.com/lis. If they do have one, you should ask them to create an account for you in that specific system and not in this lisdemo.libguides.com system. Once the account has been created for you, you’ll be able to copy your guides from that lisdemo.libguides.com system into your institution’s specific system. Here are instructions for copying guides: https://ask.springshare.com/libguides/faq/777.