Springshare Support Blog

Northfield Mount Hermon School joined LibGuides this morning, bringing our total site count to 200!  Our membership has just about doubled since January, and we have quite a few more groups that will be joining the community in the next few months.

Thanks to everyone for making the first half of 2008 a very successful one for Springshare and our LibGuides community members!

We wanted to take a moment to highlight two of our newest community members, and the innovative ways they are using LibGuides to provide more than just subject-guides.

Scottsdale Community College has both a “traditional” LibGuides system, as well as a second site which they are using as their library homepage.  This allows the librarians to make website updates quickly and easily, without having to contact IT or a Systems Librarian whenever they want to add information to the library website.  This is an interesting approach and one we expect to see more frequently as LibGuides matures with greater control of layout, customization, etc.

http://library.scottsdalecc.edu/

The Burlington County Library System has an *excellent* example of how LibGuides can be used in a public library environment. Their system contains guides for K-6 research and homework help, cultural information for new U.S. citizens, local real estate information, cooking tips, and much more.  We will definitely be pointing other public libraries to the BCLS LibGuides site as an excellent “getting started” reference.

http://explore.bcls.lib.nj.us/

Springshare is proud to announce that our LibGuides community has reached 101 member libraries - including many of the world’s most innovative academic, public and special libraries!  We are amazed at how rapidly our community is growing, and how LibGuides is quickly becoming a premiere destination for research and study.

Thank you to our existing members for making LibGuides such a success, and for those of you that are considering a subscription, we look forward to having you on board soon!

For a complete list of our community members please visit http://libguides.com.

Located in Nova Scotia, Dalhousie University is one of the first members of the LibGuides community located outside of the United States.  One of Canada’s leading universities, Dalhousie is widely recognized for outstanding academic quality and teaching, and a broad range of educational and research opportunities.

Since joining Libguides a few months ago, Dalhousie librarians have created an incredible list of 145 subject guides, ranging from Biomedical Engineering to Italian Studies.  I asked Fran Nowakowski, Information Literacy Coordinator at Dalhousie, how they were able to create so much content in so little time, and this is what she had to say:

LibGuides came along at exactly the right time for us. The method we were using for our subject content was not answering our needs but we needed something in place by September. When I saw LibGuides I knew it was what we needed. The interface is very easy to use and the LibGuides team are very responsive to suggestions for improvements particularly the integration of web 2.0 elements such as meebo and del.icio.us tags. The librarians love it because it is so easy to use and enables them to respond quickly to changing needs.

Kudos to everyone at Dalhousie for creating a very impressive research tool for their patrons!

LibGuides at Dalhousie University:
http://libguides.library.dal.ca/

Dalhousie University - Engineering Guides:
http://libguides.library.dal.ca/search.php?search=engineering

Dalhousie University - Business Rearch Guide:
http://libguides.library.dal.ca/content.php?pid=570

Congratulations to Ken, and the rest of the team at Boston College, for taking their “LibGuides @ BC” system live this week.

It really is amazing how much they have achieved in only a few weeks time, and I’m sure the best is yet to come!

If you looking for an excellent example of what the LibGuides system is capable of, I highly recommend that you explore what BC has created at http://libguides.bc.edu.

You can also find Ken’s original announcement, as well as his “rocket” image, at http://commtopics.blogspot.com/2007/08/weve-launched-libguides-bc.html.