Presentation Title: Forging New Trails: Reconstructing a University’s LibGuides 

Presenter(s): Emily Espanol, School of Information

Abstract: In the summer of 2021, the Roseman University of Health Sciences Library underwent its yearly LibGuides inventory: links were checked and assets tracked across all 35 of the library’s published LibGuides. However, after three years of instruction with the guides, librarian Anna felt the construction of the guides was haphazard at best. She proposed and launched a LibGuides reconstruction project. Combining projects for INFO 210 (Reference Services) and INFO 244 (Online Searching), I created a search strategy for the project and developed a document of best usability practices with the Springshare content management system. Then, with the project team, I helped conduct five user tests in May 2021. Since then, we developed much-needed style guidelines to document decisions behind the new iteration of LibGuides and implemented them across 30 new guides that launched in late October. This experience hugely impacts my professional growth. I was able to apply classroom lessons and execute research that allowed me to make recommendations based on data that I had gathered. I became a functioning expert in usability practices and the LibGuide content management system widely used in academic libraries everywhere, and I collaborated with my teammates as a researcher and a leader.

Link to Recorded Presentation: https://youtu.be/qDbPHCyWzJI