Springshare Support Blog

When we see impressive examples of the content created by librarians with LibGuides, we don’t just yell “holy smokes!”, we also share it with the world. The Gulf Oil Spill Information Center (GOSIC) site, created by the librarians at the University of South Florida (USF) is a great example of what happens when you give librarians an easy-to-use tool to publish information and share their knowledge.

http://guides.lib.usf.edu/gulf-oil-spill

This is a thrilling example of librarians using LibGuides/CampusGuides to compile and publish the highest-quality information in a format that’s fast, flexible, and dynamic. The long-term goal of the GOSIC project is to create an open-access digital library of resources pertaining to the Gulf Oil Spill, containing both “grey” information sources (data sets, maps, press releases, transcripts, videos, web content/blog posts, etc.) as well as relevant published peer-reviewed research and scientific data. USF is harnessing the power of LibGuides/CampusGuides social collaboration / Web 2.0 functionality in their efforts to compile information. There are hundreds of Gulf Oil Spill related websites out there, but few can rival the GOSIC site at USF for its breadth, depth, and the quality of information.

With a disaster of this magnitude, the success or failure of response efforts depends on the availability, quality and timeliness of information. We are proud to have created a tool which enables librarians to rapidly share their knowledge with everyone – after all, it’s librarians that deserve the rightful recognition for being the best information resources out there!

(And if you want to see other examples of guides that made us yell “holy smokes!”, check out our Best Of site at http://bestof.libguides.com.  Permission to copy “Best Of” guides into your system is granted by their librarian-creators ahead of time, so help us keep the social collaboration party train rolling!)