First drafts of four guides

I am pretty excited, as I have finished the first drafts of four of the guides:

• Civil & Environmental Engineering,
• Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering,
• Electrical & Electronic Engineering, and
• Mechanical Engineering.

I have emailed the links to a couple of colleagues and my supervisor at work, so hopefully I will receive some feedback soon.

There are still a few changes that I'd like to make (like possibly adding some more images and maybe a del.icio.us tag cloud), but I thought it would be a good idea to get some feedback at this stage and make modifications over the next couple of weeks.

Some of the things that I have considered while making the guides include:

• Keeping the structure of guides consistent and the layout of the pages within the guides consistent:
• I have done this by using the same layout for all the guides, for example I have used the same tab or page names and I have used a two column layout on all the pages except the home pages.
• Placing important information prominently in the guides:
• I have included a list of a few key resources on the home page for each of the guides, so that if students do not read the rest of the guides they will still get some value out of it.
• I have put instructions on how to find each type of resource in the same place on each page: the top left-hand box.
• I have tried to order lists of resources by placing those most likely to be useful first (rather than ordering lists alphabetically).
• Reducing the amount of content:
• I have tried to keep the text to a minimum and have used simple language.
• I have tried to keep lists of resources short and break longer lists up into multiple boxes.
• I link to more detailed information in other guides, rather than trying to repeat everything in my guide.
• I have tried to minimise the amount of scrolling on each page.

I have also been using my master engineering guide a lot to link to content in the guides, so that they are consistent and will be easy to maintain. This has already been useful, as I few times I have decided to change the text in a box or the description for a link and it has been reflected in all the guides automatically!

Next I need to start writing up my report, finish the modifications to the first four guides and hopefully complete the last three guides!

Creating a Master Guide

Over the past week or so I have actually started creating the guides!

My main objective is to create the guides in such a way that they are easy to maintain (and relatively) quick to create.

I have started by working on a 'Master Engineering LibGuide' (http://unimelb.libguides.com/eng_master). I originally though that I would create a template guide that would determine the structure and main boxes to include in all the guides, and I started creating this template last semester. But I have since realised that a template might be a bit restrictive and so converted the template into a master guide, that has content that I will reuse parts of in many of the guides. For example, I started by creating a big list of links to engineering databases, and have started reusing individual links in other guides. This is really useful because I can change the link or description in the master guide and it changes in all the guides I have reused it in. The master guide is still a work in progress and I plan to add to it as I work on the individual guides.

I have also created a big list of links in the master guide to engineering LibGuides created by other universities that I found via Google and the LibGuides community website. I was surprised by how many there are, and I had to stop linking to all of the guides I found, as my lists were becoming too lengthy, but made sure that I linked to all the Australian engineering LibGuides I could find (as I think these are probably the most relevant). I plan to refer to these guides to see what they have included in their guides, the resources they have highlighted and the features they have included.

In addition to the master guide, I have created the following guides (which are in various stages of completion):

• Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering,
• Civil & Environmental Engineering,
• Electrical & Electronic Engineering,
• Mechanical Engineering,
• Biomedical Engineering,
• Geomatics.

 I already have a complete LibGuide on Computer Science & Software Engineering that I completed last semester, but I plan to update this once I have finished the other guides.

Today I have been concentrating on the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering guide. I have found the chapters on Chemical Engineering in:

• ‘Information sources in engineering’ edited by Roderick A. MacLeod and Jim Corlett., http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b2946649~S30 and,
• 'Using the engineering literature / edited by Bonnie A. Osif' http://cat.lib.rmit.edu.au/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=580271

very useful. Although some of the resources mentioned are out-of-date (especially the web links), many are still relevant and have updated versions or editions.

It has also been valuable working on this guide as I have found that I couldn't access a few online resources from home:

• Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry (via Wiley online library), and,
• 'CRC handbook of chemistry and physics' http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b3127310~S30

I am still not sure exactly what tabs (or pages) I will include in the guides, and plan first to figure out exactly which resources, such as databases or e-books, I will link to from each guide. I hope to finish much of this during this week... and will continue Tweeting about the experience!

Tweeting and compiling guidelines

I am back home in Melbourne after being in Brisbane last week for ALIA Access 2010 (see my photos on Flickr). I didn’t really hear anything about LibGuides (or subject guides in general) while I was at ALIA (possibly due to the streams that I attended: the New Grads stream and Library Camp), but I did learn a little about Twitter. People tweeted their questions and thoughts throughout the conference (using the hash tag #aliaaccess), and the organisers of library camp displayed Tweet Deck during the break-out discussions. I also had lunch with a few librarians who mentioned that they use Twitter as a personal learning network. So I plan to try tweeting about my experiences for the rest of the Information Project (as kjlindsay) in the hope that it will keep me motivated and that I might get some feedback and advice from other librarians! (I have also added my Twitter stream to the banner on the side of this blog).

I feel a little worried about having lost a week while I was in Brisbane, but have been working hard today and started writing up my literature review. I have taken my supervisor's advice and approached it by writing a series of questions as headings, and the one I was working on today was: ‘How should a subject guide be designed so that it is user-friendly?’. After sifting through my notes and combining the guidelines from several articles and websites some of the main points that I’ve gathered are:

• Less is more:
• Avoid overwhelming the user by minimising and breaking-up the content. Scrolling is bad. Bulleted lists, sub-headings, boxes and columns are good. Link to websites that have more comprehensive information if necessary.
• Be consistent:
• Consistency in structure and appearance, both within a guide and between guides from the same institution is important. Templates can help with this.
• Use images & icons:
• Photographs, screenshots, book covers, database logos and icons can break up the text, make the guide more appealing and help trigger students’ memories.
• Give important resources prime real-estate:
• Students often choose the most prominently placed resources, so don’t order resources alphabetically, order by importance or usefulness.
• Try not to use library jargon:
• Provide a glossary for common library/research terms.

From:

• Interdisciplinary collaboration: A faculty learning community creates a comprehensive LibGuide
• Reaching Out with LibGuides: Establishing a Working Set of Best Practices
• Usability in the Library: LibGuides Reports, from the University of Michigan
• Research Guides (LibGuides) Usability Results, from MIT Libraries
• LibGuides: 9 Steps to Better Usability & Design at Boston College 
• Making Research Guides More Useful and More Well Used 
• 21st Century Readers' Aids: Past History and Future Directions
• From paper to electronic, the evolution of pathfinders: a review of the literature
• Cognitive Load Theory and library research guides