LibAnswers Updates
LibAnswers got a major upgrade last week. You’ve probably noticed the major toolbar organization changes, and may have seen our guide on the LibAnswers Update, but we have tons of additional features and upgrades to tell you about! Here’s the highlights reel:
- The New pop-up Widget is an awesome way to integrate your Ask a Librarian service in any website! Check out our Widget help guide for examples and more info.
- The question submission form is now more customizable. There are now a total of 3 multiple-choice fields and 2 free-text fields to work with, and the labels for every element of the form are customizable! More info
- We’ve consolidated new incoming content (new questions, replies, and comments) into a centralized “Unanswered” stream. Question Replies are easier to keep track of, and we’ve made it easy to break replies out out into new questions (for those “one more question… type replies)
- There are tons of new filter & sort options available for knowledge base and Reference Analytics content, including date/day/time filters, name/email info, question-form data, etc. More info
- Query Spy now includes referrer URL information for every record (so you can see where people are asking questions – a little context goes a long way!) More info
- We’ve added monthly reporting for public question views (beginning with 8/2011)
- Chart and Stats export options also got an upgrade – it’s now easier to export, edit, and print all the beautiful data you can find in LibAnswers. More info
- We’ve also added new Cross-Tab reports for Reference Analytics clients! Compare two Analytics fields for in-depth data analysis.
New LibGuides and CampusGuides Updates
Hey Hey Hey – we released an update for LibGuides & CampusGuides this weekend! Check out the new features & improvements:
- New Slider option to control column widths
Sick of resurrecting your math skills every time you want to create custom column widths? Us too! In any guide, head to Add/Edit Pages –> Resize Columns to see the new slider.
- Add a customized message on your site’s support form
Every LibGuides and CampusGuides site includes a link in the footer to “Report a Tech Support Issue”, which triggers an email to our Springy Support team and cc’s your primary site administrator. If there are different help channels that your patrons should be using, you can add a custom note to the “Report a Tech Support Issue” form! Check out Hillsborough Community College for an example. To add custom text to your site’s form, email Springy Support and let us know what you’d like to add! - CampusGuides – New API option lets you filter by group
We’ve added a new filter for API calls! To filter an API call to return results from a specific group, add the term “&gid=xxx” (where xxx is the ID of the group you want to filter by). With this new feature, you can dynamically generate a list of guides, list of authors, list of subject categories, or tag cloud for an individual group in your system – neato! - CampusGuides – Add a note to your IP rules
Having trouble keeping track of your CampusGuides IP rules? We’ve added a new “note” field – now, you can keep track of what those random-looking IP strings actually do.
To view this new option, Admins can head to System Wide Settings –> Access Rules. - E-Reserves – New course visibility options
This one’s for folks using the E-Reserves module. We’ve added a visibility option to E-Reserves courses. By assigning a course visibility date, you can show/hide courses (and all the e-reserve content they contain) by date. To edit your course visibility dates, head to E-Reserves –> E-Reserve Course List; click the “Course Visibility” drop-down to choose a custom date range for your course’s visibility.
LibAnalytics: Numerical Analysis, Kapow!
We’ve added a new tool to the LibAnalytics data arsenal – Numerical Analysis! It’s perfect for answering these types of questions:
- On average, how many people use your study rooms after 3pm on Thursdays?
- In July, how many people were in the building before 10am?
- What are the total and average number of attendees in your instruction sessions?
- Create an instance that contains numeric fields (head count, study room use, instruction attendance, etc.) & collect some data
- Head to the Data Explorer, and apply any filters you’d like (date/day/time, field values, etc.)
- Click “Apply Filters” – Numerical Analysis is the last tab option:
LibAnalytics: Customization Galore!
Last week we introduced you to our awesomesauce Cross Tab reports.
This week we’re all about bringing you the cherry on top: customization…and more customization!
1. Custom Ordering of Fields
You’re psyched you have so many options and can really record any data you want – we hear ya, it’s pretty darn sweet. But you also want to put them on the page in any order you want? Done.
For example, if you want to have a multiple choice field of “Location” and want one of the options to be “Other”, now you can put a free text field just under it and have people record what “Other” actually is.
Just think of the options…the freedom! Now go have fun rearranging your instances…
2. Custom Head Section For Each Instance
What to the what now?! Each instance in LibAnalytics now has a custom Head section where you can insert your own custom CSS or JavaScript. Use this field to customize the look and feel of each instance like hiding some fields or labels or creating a different layout. Awesomesauce? Indeed!
LibAnalytics: Cross Tab Reports are here!
If you thought LibAnalytics was tasty, then our new awesome-sauce feature will blow your data tastebuds away! Cross Tab Reporting is like the umami of comparative statistics. It enables you to see a full comparison between any 2 multi-choice fields, making it easy to identify interdependencies between the data you track.
For instance, let’s say you’re tracking Reference transactions in your library. You might have chosen to track things like “Question Method” (in person, phone, email, IM, SMS) and “Who Asked the Question” (Undergraduate, Graduate, Faculty, Staff, Visitor). With Cross Tab Reports, you can create an instant comparison of the values in those two fields, making it easy to see where various users are asking questions:
Love it? Us too! Even better, you can filter cross tab report results by date range, day of the week / time of day, data entered, and/or text in the question. This helps reveal interdependencies in the data you track.
To get cooking with cross tab reports, LibAnalytics users can head to the Data Explorer, and select the “Cross Tab Report” tab. As always, thanks to the community for this most excellent feature suggestion!
LibGuides & CampusGuides Updates
Let’s hear it for code updates! We can’t wait to share the latest features & updates with you, so without further ado…
Simpify. Eliminate. Integrate. (Part 1).
Check out the latest edition of Springy News for a great visual walkthrough the new SEI changes! Here’s the highlights reel:
- Guide Index Screen – Say hello to the new central management hub for your ‘guides. We brought the heat, and revamped the Guide Index – now, you can view and edit guide info, editors & co-owners, tags, & subject categories for your guides all in one page. There’s also a wealth of new filter, sort, & export options from the guide index screen – it’s bonkers!
- Guide Editing Toolbar – Scroll, and the toolbar scrolls with you!
- Change Guide Info – We’ve reorganized the guide settings menu – now, everything is in one screen, separated by tabs, so the function you want is easier to find! We’ve moved lots of things to this screen, including the Guide Publishing options, Subject Categories, and Friendly URL.
- Add Box screen – We’ve added so many new box types over the years that the “Add Box” window was screaming for reorganization. Check out the Box Types Explorer, which outlines the box features. Added bonus: for all our Netbook users, you won’t have to zoom out to add a box!
Check out this month’s Springy News for screenshots & more info!
- RSS & Podcast Feeds – These box-types will now update more frequently, so the feed content you present will now be fresher than fresh.
- New Mobile Display – We’ve optimized the mobile version of your guides – users will now be presented with a guide’s tabs as options, rather than automatically expanding the 1st tab.
- Delete Link Info – When you go to delete a link from one of the “Links” box-types, you’ll see a list of the pages where the link has been reused, so it’ll be easy to see the impact on your guides!
- Admins: Rich Text Editor update – Admins can now hide elements in the Rich Text Editor (such as “Font family”, “Font size”, etc) – this can help minimize inline styles that your guide authors may be adding. Email us and let us know what you’d like to hide!
Announcing Mobile Site Builder and LibAnalytics
After we gave a sneak peek to our clients via last week’s newsletter, today I am pleased to announce that the Mobile Site Builder and LibAnalytics systems are now available for anybody to check out. These two new tools expand our Springshare web platform in two important directions – mobile web and statistical analysis. Both of these are hot topics for libraries, and since our goal is to bring the latest and greatest web technologies to our clients this is a natural extension of our product lines.
Mobile Site Builder (http://springshare.com/mobile) works with LibGuides or CampusGuides and it enables libraries to effortlessly create and maintain a professional-looking mobile website. We handle the coding, the automatic redirects for mobile devices, hosting, etc. – you just log on, create menus, submenus, add content and voila – your mobile users have information on the go. Mobile Site Builder is offered as a module to LibGuides/CampusGuides so our clients will feel right at home in terms of the ease of use and familiar interface. Oh, and did we mention it costs only $299/year? You won’t find a better deal for a comparable mobile tool, so get in while the going is hot. 
For more information, check out http://springshare.com/mobile, and let us know if any questions pop up.
LibAnalytics (http://springshare.com/libanalytics) is our new platform for recording, tracking, and analyzing data at your library. LibAnalytics grew out of our Reference Analytics module in LibAnswers. We took Reference Analytics, which was targeted for gathering reference statistics only, and added tons of new features, more fields (up to 30 metadata fields to track) and data types (multi-choice, numeric, & free-text), improved filtering, better charts and reports, greater flexibility, and … LibAnalytics was born.
If you like statistics and data (who doesn’t, right?) LibAnalytics will feel like data-Nirvana. Instruction Statistics, Reference Statistics, Workflow Statistics, … literally any type of statistical information can be recorded, tracked, and analyzed in LibAnalytics. And the pricing starts at $299/year for a single instance. Yes, you read that right - it’s affordable, it’s powerful, it’s great looking, it’s easy to use, it’s… a typical Springshare web-app. Take the first step toward becoming a Data Ninja: http://springshare.com/libanalytics.
Developing these tools wouldn’t have been possible without our awesome client libraries who are always giving us fresh ideas and great feedback, so big thanks to everybody who contributed their comments, feedback, and ideas which resulted in these two really neat, and really useful new tools. Onwards and upwards!
Spring Is In The Air!
I’ll tell you a secret; Spring is my favorite time of year. It’s not the fresh-faced daffodils and tulips, or the Sparrow’s returning song, nor is it the return of reasonably priced berries in the grocery store. Hands down, the absolute best part of Spring is the super energizing phenomenon of Spring Cleaning. If you’re like me (giddy about cleaning and passionate about lists), read on for ideas on doing a bit of Spring Cleaning in your guides!
- Are you using the same content over and over in your guides? Now’s a great time to come up with a Reusable Content Strategy for your links to resources, content boxes, and even entire pages.
- Create a centralized “Storage“, or “Template” guide, and create “linked” versions of that content throughout your guides
- Any future changes to your storage content will automatically update in all the “linked” versions across your site!
- Thinking about a site redesign? Check out the Best Of Customizations for a bit of inspiration!
- Been holding on to outdated, unpublished content? Spring is a great time for weeding and decluttering!
- Looking for ideas on new goodies to embed in your guides? Check out Using Interactive Tools in your Guides for some fresh ideas!
Have more ideas for bringing the Spring Cleaning mindset to your guides? Share them in the comments!
LibGuides: Information is a Candle in the Dark
We love sharing great examples of librarians using LibGuides/CampusGuides to publish high quality, timely information. When we saw Kathy Park’s guide about the tragic events in Japan, we were inspired by its breadth, quality, & currency - so we’d like to share her work with the community. Check out the COM Library’s guide to the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami:
http://libguides.com.edu/japan
From Kathy:
To be honest, one feels helpless in these tragic situations. As librarians there is always something we can do – we can compile and provide access to good quality information – it’s what we do best.
Especially for major tragedies, our patrons want to know more beyond just the latest news. How were people affected? What was it like to be there? How can this happen… and how can I help? This guide (and others like it) is a direct result of interacting with our patrons.
Using embedded media, this guide is able to continually update and evolve to reflect the changing situation in Japan. Highlights from this guide include an interactive Google map (which provides links to video and more information), and excellent RSS feeds. In the future, Kathy plans to add a page about Japan, and another on nuclear power (which is emerging as a significant part of the story), and will continue adding new angles as the situation evolves.
We love sharing these success stories – as Kathy mentions, “Every time I create a new guide, I blog it. I use twitterfeed to send the blog post to our Twitter & Facebook accounts, and I use the text from our blog to email every user on campus”. And the results are tangible – using Kathy’s links, patrons have donated to victims of this and other catastrophic events, and students have access to an incredible source of research help, akin to a time-capsule of an event.
Much like the GOSIC (Gulf Oil Spill Information Center) guide we shared back in July ( http://guides.lib.usf.edu/gulf-oil-spill ), these guides represent the best of what LibGuides has to offer. We’re proud to be able to offer librarians a fast & flexible tool to rapidly share their knowledge with their communities. We also love to share, and Kathy has graciously agreed to allow other LibGuiders to re-use her excellent content in your own sites. For more information, check out our Best Of site: http://bestof.libguides.com/collections
New LibAnswers Features Released!
We are very excited to announce a brand-new release of LibAnswers system with tons of new features and improved functionality. The updates went out this past weekend so everything is live already. Here is the rundown of the new stuff:
- LibAnalytics. We introduced a new product called LibAnalytics, which borrows from the functionality of the current Reference Analytics module. This is for libraries who require the statistics functionality of the Analytics module but do not need the rest of the LibAnswers system (public q/a, the ability for patrons to ask questions, etc). In LibAnalytics, libraries can define multiple analytics instances – each instance can track up to 10 metadata fields with up to 30 values per field. You can track anything you want with LibAnalytics, i.e. it is not just limited to reference. So, track and analyze away! Please contact us if you would like more information on LibAnalytics.
- The Reference Analytics module has been expanded to support additional instances as well (just like the LibAnalytics product but this is integrated into LibAnswers). Now the Reference Analytics clients can define multiple analytics instances (i.e. if you’d like to track statistics at the circulation desk, info literacy sessions statistics, or media desk, etc – you can track anything you’d like). Contact us if you’d like more information on the expanded Reference Analytics module.
- The “More Ways to Contact Us” box now has icons/options for phone contact and email contact (previously it only had twitter/sms contact icons). With this enhancement your patrons can easily note how to contact you via the phone or email.
- Private questions can now have replies. Emailed answers include a link for the recipient where they can comment/leave a reply to the answer. These replies/conversations are threaded in the View/edit private answer page.
- It is now possible to “close” a question without sending an answer.
- Linked answers! They are here, at last! When answering a public question you can “link” to an existing answer, so any changes to the original entry will automatically be propagated to all “linked” answers (it works just like linked pages/linked boxes in LibGuides).
- Added privacy/access control options. Now you can put your entire system behind an IP access/address range, or you can password-protect access to the entire system. There is also a new option to disallow search engine indexing.
- Improved QuerySpy interface. QuerySpy is the unsung hero of LibAnswers – people love it and for a good reason. Now it’s easier to use – you can delete entries from the grid, set date range filters, export data to excel, etc. Check it out – it’s cool!
- Improved “Comments” for q/a pairs. Comments can now be edited directly from the admin interface. Logged in users’ comments are approved automatically, and you can automatically send an email to the original questioner, with the text of the comment.
- “Change Topic” dropdown now appears on the homepage, to enable visitors to easily browse the list of topics.
- “Featured Questions” box on the homepage – now you can customize which questions will appear on the homepage (this works just like the featured guides box in LibGuides).
- Improved mobile interface – you can now set the default text inside the “Ask us” box in the mobile interface.
- The “success” message on the question form submission page is now fully customizable.
- Emailed answers now explicitly note if there is multimedia (videos, or attached files) associated with the answer, and point the email recipient to the anchored page where they can view this multimedia.
- To see other questions from the same email address you can click on the email address in the “Unanswered” tab or click the link next to the email in the answer/edit page for the individual answer.
- Link checker! Yes, you read it correctly, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Link checker is now available in LibAnswers, too – it will periodically (twice a month) check the validity of links you included as part of your answers.
Phew, that’s a lot of new stuff, so check it out when you get a chance and, as always, please let us know what you think. Thanks to everybody who contributed their ideas, comments, suggestions, testing, and blood sweat and tears which went into developing this awesome new LibAnswers release.
