Archive for Talia

| October 10, 2017
No comments

Social Media’s Role in Higher Education Libraries

If you’re not already on social media, we hope we’ve made a case in our recent blog post and August SpringyNews newsletter for you to consider hopping on the social media train.

But if not, perhaps this recent Pew Research Report on Social Media might change your mind. They found that 69% of Americans use social media today. And of that 69%, 86% are between the ages of 18-29.

Check out this map by Pew Research:

Pew Internet Usage Map

Furthermore, roughly 3/4 of Facebook users and about half of Instagram users visit these sites at least once per day.

So, why is social media important for Higher Education Libraries? Well, that’s where your students, and prospective students, are.

So, You’ve Drunk the Kool-aid…What’s Next?

So, you’re on social media – good for you! Here are some ideas and suggestions for engaging with your social media demographic.

The Importance of Being Authentic

However you approach social media, imagine your posts as if you’re talking to an acquaintance. Not a close, personal friend, but someone with whom you can have a casual and informal conversation.

Social media users are accustomed, and therefore respond more strongly, to a more conversational style. Additionally, they’ll feel more connected to the Library through social interactions which feel more human and accessible than your highly-stylized library website.

What Types of Content Should You Post?

Like everyone in the social media universe, you probably struggle with the following social existential questions:

  • What should I post today?
  • Does this thing I want to post add value for our users?
  • How do I post something that will go viral with our followers?

And while we can’t offer the answers to those specific questions, we do have some tips for writing successful posts.

1. Highlight Your Community

Nothing speaks to your social media users than talking to them about them (how meta!). Skim the newspapers, both on-campus and locally, and share posts that talk about current students, faculty, staff, or alumni.

Highlight student workers, and their contributions to the library. They’ll most likely retweet/share it, meaning their large group of followers will see it too.

Bottom-line, show your audience that your community is note-worthy and that you’re proud to share their accomplishments, which by extension, are your accomplishments as well. #PatYourselfOnTheBack

2. Showcase Events…Even Ones Outside the Library

It’s easy to get stuck in the mind-set that the library’s Social Media accounts are solely for the purpose of promoting library content. But, by promoting campus-wide events and content, you’re positioning your social media accounts as the go-to place for knowing what’s going on on-campus.

And, for events that occur at the library, consider creating a digital experience around a physical event…especially for people who can’t attend. Set up a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram Live video stream of the event. Gather user-generated content and retweet them to show that you’re listening on social media. Once the event has passed, continue to showcase and advertise it. Post quotes, pictures, recap videos, and more.

3. Show the Day-to-Day At the Library

comfychairstweetIs the library coffee cart running low on donuts? Post a picture inviting your users to grab the last one before they’re all gone!

Teaching a library instruction class today? Be sure to post a picture of the library classroom tagging the professor and mentioning the course name/number.

Take a quickie video of how to enter the library from a particularly confusing location or how to find Room 201 behind the strange corner next to the bathroom.

The point is that if your users can see the ‘day-to-day’ experience in the library, they’ll see how they can fit into it and how they belong there.

4. What Can You Offer… That No One Else Can

Librarians are often the worst at touting their own horns, but the work you all do to help and support your students, faculty, and staff is nothing short of amazing. So, take some time on social media to tell your users what you can offer them, that no other space or department on campus can. #BlowYourHorn

  • 24Hour Library – If you’re the only space on campus with 24hour access, be sure to let your users know…and remind them, often.
  • Citation Services – Most freshman have no idea how to write up a works cited page. If you offer citation services, let them know. Also, don’t hesitate to tag specific classes or professors in your posts. Students may not know that they should seek out MLA citation help,  but if you tweet “Students of Prof. Smith’s ENG102 Comp. Class – come to the library for help with your paper.” they’ll know you’re talking about them.
  • Quiet/Safe Space – Don’t underestimate the value of simply having a quiet and safe space on a loud, bustling campus. Take photos of your comfy chairs, cozy nooks, and stationed security guards so students know that this is a place to go to not only get some peace and quiet, but to feel safe as well.
  • Your Awesome Equipment – If you’ve got 3D printers and a makerspace lab, you’re probably the only place on campus with that level of equipment. You’re like the Tony Stark on-campus, showcase it on social media too.

How Can Springshare Help You on Social Media?

We understand the importance of social media and to that end we’ve rolled out Social Media Management inside of the LibAnswers platform. This completely *free* with your LibAnswers v2 Platform subscription tool empowers you to do what you do best on social media.

LibAnswers Social Media Management Tool

Connect your library’s Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest pages and manage all three of them from one interface. Here’s what else you can do:

  • Engage in Social Listening – Setup Twitter Hashtags to watch and keep your finger on the conversation pulse occurring in your community.
  • Schedule Posts – One of the most important aspects of social media is consistent posting. To that end, schedule Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest posts into the future so your social feed is always buzzing.
  • Use Facebook Messenger Live – Integrate your Facebook page and you’ll be able to answer Facebook Messenger live chats right from the LibChat operator console. This is a great way to provide social customer service natively inside Facebook.
  • One View for All Stats – Never shortchange your reference stats by being able to view all your social activity from one stats interface.
LibAnswers Social Media Management Tool

LibAnswers Social Media Management Tool

Category: General, LibAnswers |
| October 5, 2017
No comments

Moving from LibCal Room Bookings to Spaces: More Functionality, More Features, More Fun!

When we first released the LibCal Equipment Booking Add-On Module, we saw a need to integrate room bookings with the equipment reservation process. Wouldn’t it be neat if a patron could reserve a room and related equipment in the exact same reservation?

And also, wouldn’t it be great if we could revamp the way Room Bookings calculates availability by connecting it to the LibCal Hours module?

And while we’re at it, what if we could extend Room Bookings availability to go past midnight?

We had so many ideas and suggestions from all you loyal Springy users on ways to improve the Room Bookings tool. And what better way to ensure that we’re able to do everything than to code up a brand-new tool? Hence, Spaces was born.

What’s LibCal Spaces and How Does It Work?

LibCal Spaces is a replacement to the existing LibCal Room Bookings tool. It has a ton of extra features that LibCal Room Bookings doesn’t contain, more on that below, and it fully integrates with the Equipment Booking Add-on Module.

What Can LibCal Spaces Do?

This blog post would get very long, very quickly, if we outlined all the extra features you get with LibCal Spaces. But, here’s a quick list of the top features:

  • Accessibility & Mobile-Friendliness – We conducted a robust accessibility and usability review of Spaces to ensure that LibCal Spaces works for all users.
  • Customizable Availability Grid – Does the red/green availability grid not work for your color-blind users? You can now easily change those colors with our point-and-click color picker.
  • Availability Governed by the Hours Module – Connect your Spaces to the LibCal hours module to determine when rooms are available for reservation. This means, no more managing availability on a periodic basis.
  • Reservations Can Go Past Midnight – If your library is open till the wee hours of the morning and your rooms are available for reservation till 1am, 2am, or even 3am – patrons can reserve a room past midnight on one single reservation.
  • Connected to Equipment Module – Patrons can reserve a room and related equipment in a single reservation.
  • Read/Write APIs – Push reservations and cancellations into LibCal Spaces using the robust API.
  • Granular Booking Forms – Apply a unique booking form at either the entire Location-level or at the category-level.
  • Group Authentication Integration – Should only faculty be able to reserve the conference room? Should only business school students be able to book the Bloomberg Computers? If you have groups defined in your authentication tool (SAML, Shibboleth, ADFS, CAS) you can connect those groups to specific rooms to restrict reservation.
  • Patron Booking as a Block of Time – Users can pick their own start time on the availability grid and then select an end time in the drop-down according to your max & min time settings. Basically, no more clicking a bunch of static time-slots!
  • Easier to Update Reoccurring Bookings – In Spaces, all instances of a reoccurring bookings are listed in a single booking request. This makes it much easier to view, manage, and cancel reoccurring bookings.
  • Create LibCal Events from a Spaces Booking Request – If a faculty member books a library instruction session via Spaces, you can easily create a public LibCal event from that booking.
  • …and more!

How Do I Move from Room Bookings to Spaces?

  • First things first, migrating from Room Bookings to Spaces is completely free.
  • You’ll receive the same number of rooms in Spaces as you currently subscribe to in Room Bookings.
  • The migration process is an automated process you can control right from within your LibCal system. Go to Admin > Equipment & Spaces > Start Spaces Migration. Plus, we have this handy-dandy migration help guide to walk you through the entire process.
    • You do *not* need to contact Springy support to assist you with migration.
steps for migrating from room bookings to spaces

Where to migrate from Room Bookings to Spaces

Will I Still Have Access to Room Bookings Once I Go Live With Spaces?

No, you can only use either Room Bookings or Spaces but not both. Once you’re live with Spaces, the Room Bookings menu option will disappear from the Admin Orange Command Bar.

Can I Migrate to Spaces if I Have Upcoming Reservations in Room Bookings?

Yes. Here’s how the migration works:

  1. We’ll migrate your existing room groups into Spaces as ‘categories’.
  2. We’ll migrate the individual rooms in each group, including room names, descriptions, images, and terms & conditions.
  3. We’ll migrate all future bookings for each room.

What Happens to My Previous Room Booking Stats & Data?

You’ll still have access to historical Room Booking stats via Stats > Room Bookings.

Do I Have to Move to Spaces or Can I Continue to Use Room Bookings?

Yes. At some point, we will sunset Room Bookings completely. In addition, we’re focusing all new features, accessibility updates, and authentication integration on Spaces. But, have no fear – you can migrate to Spaces whenever you feel most comfortable or doing a slow-period like a holiday break. Take your time and do it on your schedule.

Does Spaces Have the Exact Same Feature Set as Room Bookings?

In our upcoming October, 2017 Spaces update – we’ll be close to full parity between the feature set of Room Bookings and Spaces. All the major and even minor features of Room Bookings will exist in Spaces. If you notice something missing, please contact our support team. Bottom-line, you won’t lose any major or minor functionality by migrating from Room Bookings to Spaces. Plus, you’ll win out on a ton of extra cool new features plus full integration with the Equipment Booking Add-on Module.

Is LibCal Spaces Setup for HTTPs?

Yes! And in conjunction with a Google Chrome update that will give a warning to users when they land on a  non-https webpage, you’ll want to setup your LibCal system and Spaces to go through https.

We have careful step-by-step instructions below, please follow them to the T to ensure that your https/security certificate is set up properly.

Where Can I Go to Get Help with LibCal Spaces?

In true Springy fashion, we have a ton of help documentation and training sessions to help you!

Category: LibCal |
| July 26, 2017
3 comments

The Importance of Having a Social Media Presence

Whether you’re on Pinterest, Facebook, or Twitter – social media is a powerful tool for relationship building and creating brand loyalty.

Increase Brand Recognition

Libraries are in a prime position to use social media to engage with customers, develop positive and sustaining relationships, and promote advocacy. Every opportunity you have to share and syndicate your content increases your visibility. Each social media channel is a way to broadcast your brand’s voice. Think about it this way. Let’s say you have a Twitter exchange with patron Sally. And Sally is so happy that you were able to solve her problem and answer her questions. All of Sally’s followers can see her exchange with your Library’s Twitter account – thus increasing your visibility to these potential new followers. Therefore, you’ve increased your potential inbound traffic to include users who *aren’t* your followers.

Richer Patron Experiences

Pie chart on SproutSocial Customer Care

SproutSocial Study on Customer Care

Several social media tools have evolved into more than just tools for posting your updates but now are important channels for customers to solicit and receive customer service. This concept is often referred to as ‘social care’ and it’s becoming the norm more and more. In fact, a SproutSocial 2016 Q2 study found that “90% of people surveyed have used social in some way to communicate directly with a brand. And that social surpasses phone and email as the first place most people turn when they have a problem or issue with a product or service.”

What does this mean for Libraries? Well, if your catalog suddenly goes down – can patrons find outage related information on your Twitter feed? Can your Facebook followers contact you if they’re having trouble logging into their Library account?

The Power of ‘Listening’

A common misuse of social media is to use it to constantly post updates. Broadcasting events, sharing library resources, etc. And while those are very important, and valid, uses of social media – don’t forget that social media is a two-way communication platform. And with two-way communication, social listening is key. Social listening is more than just replying to your @mentions, it means paying attention to conversations around specific phrases or keywords and then leveraging those opportunities to create user-targeted content.

For example, let’s say you’ve got a keyword watch on the incoming class’ hashtag “#SpringyUnivClass2022” and you notice conversations taking place on that keyword channel about a lack of snack places on campus. And wouldn’t you know it, the library just invested in a brand new coffee and snack cart at the library. This is an opportunity to market your new cafe and reach more followers – just because you were listening.

For more information on social listening, check-out this SproutSocial article on The Importance of Social Listening.

How Can You Be Where ‘They’ Are?

Social media requires a plan, manpower, and a strategy. And Libraries are increasingly short-staffed and often pulled in multiple directions at once.

We understand the importance of social media and to that end Springshare has added several new features to Springy Tools to help you have a strong social media presence – even if you’re a library of just one staffer.

LibAnswers Social Media Management Tool

In case you missed it, we rolled out Social Media Management inside of the LibAnswers platform. Connect your library’s Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest pages and manage all three of them from one interface. Here’s what else you can do:

  • Engage in Social Listening – Setup Twitter Hashtags to watch and keep your finger on the conversation pulse occurring in your community.
  • Schedule Posts – One of the most important aspects of social media is consistent posting. To that end, schedule Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest posts into the future so your social feed is always buzzing.
  • Use Facebook Messenger Live – Integrate your Facebook page and you’ll be able to answer Facebook Messenger live chats right from the LibChat operator console. This is a great way to provide social customer service natively inside Facebook.
  • One View for All Stats – Never shortchange your reference stats by being able to view all your social activity from one stats interface.

Advertise Your New LibGuides and LibCal Events

We’ve integrated social posting right into LibGuides and LibCal so that way, you can easily share and post out your new events, LibGuides, etc…and keep your followers abreast of the library’s activities.

  • Advertise Your Published LibGuides – Navigate to your LibGuide and select the ‘Change Status & Share’ Button. From here, you can publish your LibGuide, snag a guide screenshot, and advertise your LibGuide on Twitter and Facebook. Don’t forget, your guide thumbnail is automatically included in your social posts – helping them be more visually engaging to users.
  • Announce Your Latest Blog Post – If you’re using the LibGuides Blogging functionality, for every new blog post you can seamlessly share it on social media.
  • Market Your Upcoming LibCal Events – When creating a new LibCal Calendar event, you can publish the event and advertise it on social media with one simple click. Plus, if you’ve uploaded a ‘featured image’, it will automagically display in your post to create a more visually engaging post.
Screenshot of LibGuides social media engagement screen

Advertising a Published LibGuide on Social Media

Screenshot of LibAnswers Systems and Services management tool twitter integration

LibAnswers Systems & Services Management Tool

Announce Library Systems Outages & Issues

Hey, it happens to everyone. Suddenly the library website goes down or your experiencing spotty outages with your catalog.

How can you let your patrons know that you’re aware of the issue and that you’re on top of it?

If you’re using the LibAnswers Systems & Services Management Tool, you can make use of the Twitter integration to announce issues and outages with your library systems.

Simply navigate to the Status Management button on your LibAnswers Orange Command Bar > select the tool > and ‘Add Post’.

Sign-Up For Training

If you’re using Springy Tools and you want to be more active in social media, then you’re in luck! We have a dedicated training session just for you!

We promise you, social media has the potential to be a treasure trove of opportunity for your Library’s brand. By learning to use it more, you’ll better understand your customer’s and their needs as well as ways to engage with them. They’ll be #converted before they know it.

Category: General, LibAnswers, LibCal, LibGuides |
| June 30, 2017
No comments

ALA 2017 Guest Presentations Available!

Facebook Guest PresentationsIn case you missed our awesome line-up of guest speakers at the 2017 ALA Conference in Chicago, we have the recordings and presenter materials available on our Buzz site.

All videos are hosted on our Facebook Page. While you’re there, LIKE our Facebook page to have our posts display in your Facebook Feed. This way, you won’t miss out any product update announcements, video presentations, and more.

These 15-min guest presentations by real-life Springshare users will get you thinking about all the new and interesting ways you can use your Springshare tools.

Guest Presentations:

Category: Client Stories, Community, Conference |
| June 28, 2017
2 comments

2017 SpringyCamp Summer Series: Registration Now Open!

Day One of our 3-Day SpringyCamp Summer Series is now open for registration!

CLICK AND REGISTER

What’s SpringyCamp?

SpringyCamp is our virtual user conference where real-life Springshare users share how they’re using Springy Tools inside their library. Get inspired, receive practical tips and applications…all from the comfort of your computer. Plus the virtual s’mores are completely calorie-free. 😛

Program Details:

Date: July 11: 1pm – 3pm.
All times listed in U.S. Eastern Time

Cost: 100% Completely Free! Exclusive event for Springshare Customers only.

Audience: All user-levels and library-types are welcome to join us!

SpringyCamp works best if we all work together: We do have a limited number of seats, so be kind and computer-pool with your colleagues. If several folks at your library want to attend and you’re going to participate via a single computer, just register once. This way even more folks can attend, making SpringyCamp a truly global event! 🙂

Presenter Lineup!

Alice KalinowskiLibGuides Redesign Project Enhanced Liaison Librarian Outreach Efforts
Alice Kalinowski, Librarian for Business, University of Pittsburgh
Description:
This session will explore some unintended benefits of a comprehensive LibGuide re-design project, particularly for new liaisons or those wishing to reevaluate their outreach activities. The benefits include developing relationships with instructors, learning advanced subject-specific database features, taking advantage of new LibApps products and tools, and thinking more strategically about outreach and marketing to various groups.

 

Claire MillerShifting to a Jumpstart Model Improves Student Outcomes
Claire Miller, Librarian, South Florida State College
Description:
Shifting from a list of databases and print books to a research “jumpstart” model improves reference efficiency, enhances student research skills, and allows librarians to model what academic resources look like. Shifting our Literature LibGuide to the “jumpstart” model tripled our usage and has improved the reference transaction, student outcomes, and faculty buy-in. This presentation examines how the change in our LibGuides helps meet our students research needs without spoon-feeding them content, and the nuts and bolts of designing your own “jumpstarts”.

 

Brittany O'NeillReaching Students In-Person and Beyond
Brittany O’Neill, Assistant Professor and Librarian at Hodges University, Naples, Florida
Description:
This presentation will detail how I have integrated myself into the curriculum through faculty partnerships. Harnessing the power of several LibApps tools, I have been able to build successful relationships with on- and off-campus students and gather great feedback for future semesters. This strategy uses a combination of surveys in LibWizard, helpful guides in LibGuides, individual research consultations using LibCal, and custom chat widgets from LibAnswers to create a continuous and expanding library presence in liberal studies courses. This presentation will cover both the strategies for collaborating with faculty on this integration and examples of how I’ve used these tools for instruction, outreach, and assessment.

 

Amanda PeachCelebrating Scholarship with LibGuides
Amanda Peach, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Berea College, Kentucky
Description:
Recently Hutchins Library undertook two projects within LibGuides which celebrate the scholarship of our students and faculty. These guides serve as more than virtual placeholders for the local physical collections they represent, though – they add value to these collections. The first project was the creation of our BC Scholarship collection, which are individual profiles of campus staff and faculty members that offer insight into their expertise as well as access to their body of scholarly or creative works. The second project was the digitization of a large collection of zines donated by an alum several years ago. This collection became the inspiration for a collaboration between the library and our Graphic Design faculty members, who soon began to include a zine component in their course curriculum, requiring students to create their own original zines which were later gifted to the library and added to the online zine repository. Attendees will learn from our experience as we share insight gleaned from our process as well as tricks and tips for using the unique features in LibGuides CMS that made these projects so easy to pull off. 

 

Category: SpringyCamp |
| June 20, 2017
No comments

Your LibGuides Are Working Hard to Fight Fake News

Now, more than ever, there is a needed skill for identifying and fact-checking news. Librarians have rushed to fill that void creating numerous LibGuides showcasing the dangers of clickbait, the importance of research, and teaching literacy skills showing users how to identify and avoid fake news.

To that end, we’re showcasing all the amazing LibGuides you’re creating to educate your users on the importance of evaluating news resources.

Because, as Loyola Marymount University Library highlights, “Fake News can have Real World Consequences”.

 

ButtonHave a LibGuide You Want To Share?

If you have a Fake News or Information Literacy LibGuide you want us to highlight – drop us a line at news@springshare.com.

Heading to ALA Annual, Chicago?

Stop by our booth #1647 and pick up your LibGuides: Fighting Fake News Since 2007 button. These are in short-supply, so be sure to pick them up before they’re going, going, gone.

Make Your Fake News LibGuide…Community Findable

To help make your LibGuide more findable, tag it with ‘Fake News’. Then, on community.libguides.com, filter search results by the ‘Fake News’ tag. This will help retrieve the most relevant results.

 

Category: Community, Conference, General, LibGuides, LibGuides CMS |
| June 7, 2017
No comments

We’re Not ‘Shy’ In Chi-Town – Springshare’s Heading to ALA

ALA Booth 1647Springshare’s heading to the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, June 23 – 26. Not only do we have a totally rocking schedule of flash presentations, guest speakers, but we’re also introducing a ton of new buttons and stickers. We’re anticipating that these will go quickly, so swing by Booth 1647 to snag yours and learn how your fellow librarians are using Springshare tools.

New Buttons/Stickers @ALA-Chicago

Librarians Just Wanna Have Funding Sticker Fighting Fake News since 2007

Product Flash Presentations

Guest Presentations

We have an extraordinary lineup of 4 guest presenters. Don’t miss out on seeing how they’re using Springshare tools to provide stellar service.

Friday, June 23: View Entire Day’s Schedule

Ken Winter

Ken Winter

Virginia DOT: The Road Less Traveled

6:00pm – 6:15pm

This presentation will cover how the VDOT communicates library information, created a mobile-first library website, and stayed in compliance with state security and regulations.

Sat, June 24: View Entire Day’s Schedule

Sandy McCarthy

Sandy McCarthy

Washtenaw Community College: Creating a Research Toolkit

2:00pm – 2:15pm

The Bailey Library recently created a new Research Toolkit using LibGuides that includes online tutorials for teaching students information literacy skills. This presentation will include a Research Toolkit created with LibGuides CMS and enhanced with LibWizard interactive learning tutorials with assessments.

Sara Marks

Sara Marks

UMass Lowell: Creating LearningForce

3:00pm – 3:15pm

The UMass Lowell library is developing a software platform for collecting, cataloging, preserving and effectively sharing knowledge of all kinds.  We call this the LearningForce—a way to focus and concentrate library resources, broad-based academic support services, and open educational resources around a single, overarching goal—student success.

Sun, June 25: View Entire Day’s Schedule

Claire Miller

Claire Miller

South Florida State College: Shifting to a Jumpstart Model

1:00pm – 1:15pm

Shifting from a list of databases and print books to a research “jumpstart” model improves reference efficiency, enhances student research skills, and allows librarians to model what academic resources look like. Shifting our Literature LibGuide to the “jumpstart” model tripled our usage and has improved the reference transaction, student outcomes, and faculty buy-in.

Category: Conference |
| April 13, 2017
No comments

Using LibInsight to Showcase Library Services at USF: Sarasota-Manatee

The University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee Librarians use LibInsight-Lite to gather data about their instruction, research assistance, head counts, and questions asked at their information commons resource desk.

How do they communicate these stats to outside stakeholders?

They created an infographic! Pulling data from LibInsight-Lite, librarians created an easily readable (and shareable) infographic.

LibInsight has provided us a powerful, customizable tool that we have been able to use to concretely show the important and varied services we are providing to our campus.

USF Infographic

Category: Client Stories, LibInsight |
| April 3, 2017
No comments

ACRL 2017 Guest Presentations Available… on Facebook!

ACRL Guest SpeakersIn case you missed our awesome line-up of guest speakers at the ACRL Conference in Baltimore, we have the recordings and presenter materials available on our Buzz site.

All videos are hosted on our Facebook Page. While you’re there, LIKE our Facebook page to have our posts display in your Facebook Feed. This way, you won’t miss out any product update announcements, video presentations, and more.

These 15-min guest presentations by Springshare users will get you thinking about all the new and interesting ways you can use your Springshare tools.

Explore guest presentations:

Category: General |
| March 8, 2017
No comments

“We’re All In, Because It’s Easy”

..says Andrew Adler, director of the Georgetown College Library, when asked why the Library is using the entire platform of Springshare tools.

Andrew, like most librarians, wears a lot of hats. From teaching library instruction, manning the reference desk, creating training tutorials for student workers, and being available nine hours a week for one-on-one research consultations, plus being the director for the entire library – he needs their web platform tools to “just work and be easy to use“.

LibGuides CMS-Powered Website w/ Integrations

Georgetown College Website

LibGuides CMS allows for seamless integration with Springy Tools

The Georgetown College Library uses the entire Platform of Springshare Tools – and they use LibGuides CMS to power their Library Website.

“Things got a lot easier when we moved our website to LibGuides CMS.”

On their library homepage, an embedded LibCal Hours widget automatically updates to display today’s hours… no manual updating needed.

Their reference services are prominently showcased, with embedded LibAnswers LibChat widgets promoting their live reference assistance and a customized Ask Us form that routes all queries right into their LibAnswers ticketing queue.

All library forms, from a book purchase request form to reporting a catalog error are created and stored using LibWizard. In an effort to streamline work processes, their library student application is a LibWizard form! This way, librarians only have to go to one place, LibWizard, to view all form submissions.

Student Worker Training

Student Worker Training

Informing & Training Student Workers

All library student employees are trained using a combination of LibGuides with embedded LibWizard tutorials. Talk about making your tools work for you!

Circulation Student employees access the Circ Dashboard LibGuide when they sign into the circ desk computers.

From here, they can easily view their work schedules via LibStaffer, access library quick links, and take interactive training with LibWizard tutorials.

Since they’ve already used LibWizard to submit their student application forms, the process is consistent and seamless. As Andrew said, “everything they need – put in one spot”.

Andrew presented at the October 2016 SpringyCamp on training student workers using LibGuides and LibWizard. View Andrew’s presentation and download his slides.

Geogetown College Circulation Desk LibGuide

Student Circulation Dashboard LibGuide

LibWizard Tutorial

LibWizard Interactive Tutorial used to train student employees
Georgetown Staff Directory

Staff Directory LibGuide Powered by LibAnswers FAQ Widget

Using Widgets Makes It Easy to Maintain & Share Info

Even the library’s staff directory is a product of integration.

Andrew maintains the Library Staff directory as a published LibAnswers FAQ, making it easy for anyone searching the FAQ database to find staff email addresses and phone numbers. But, what if they’re not in the FAQ database? How do they find that information?

Easy!

Simply embed that Staff Directory FAQ as a widget into any webpage, including their LibGuides CMS-powered website. This way, Andrew only has to update the directory in one place, the FAQ, and watch those updates trickle down to everywhere it’s been embedded. The same consistent information is easily syndicated across multiple platforms and is easy to maintain from one central location.

Wait, What About Faculty?

 

LibCal Booking form

LibCal My Scheduler IL-Booking Form

Andrew wanted to create an online process where faculty could request library instruction as quickly and efficiently as possible. Email wasn’t cutting it, creating a lot of unnecessary back and forth. Plus, the Library maintains access to several IL-Classrooms so pointing faculty to a room reservation system would have required that Faculty know which room to request and when.

Using an outside-the-box solution, Andrew repurposed their LibCal My Scheduler as a tool for faculty to book library instruction. Most libraries use the My Scheduler tool to coordinate and schedule one-on-one research consultations. But Andrew saw it as a way to streamline their IL-Booking process. Faculty select their preferred date and time, and share their session preferences and class notes to ensure that the instruction is as targeted as possible – for the student’s benefit. Andrew receives the request, selects the appropriate classroom, and it’s all done…in just a few clicks. Easy-peasy.

These IL-Instruction Stats, and all stats from their Springshare tools, are automatically funneled into their LibInsight data gathering tool. From here, Andrew can run reports on how many classes were taught last semester, hits they had on their Library Website, and chats/texts/email reference questions they received.

Plus, using LibInsight’s Gate Counts Dataset, Andrew is able to view how many people are in the building – updated to the most recent hour. This data allows them to make staffing changes to their service desks based upon actual library traffic data. “It’s important for us to understand our student’s point of need and work to meet that need.”

 

LibInsight Gate Count Dataset

Gate Counts Data

LibInsight Gate Counts Data

Every year, Andrew meets with the Georgetown College Provost to cover the library budget. As is typical at these meetings, every line item is scrutinized. Andrew makes it clear that their use of Springshare tools are an essential library service.

“The Library couldn’t function without it – it’s our website, our research guides, our reference service tool, or reservation tool, and so much more. — Andrew Adler

Category: Client Stories, Community, General, LibAnswers, LibCal, LibChat, LibGuides CMS, LibInsight, LibStaffer, LibWizard, Reviews |
« Older Entries