LibGuides: Using Images from Syndetics vs. Amazon
September 30, 2009
We licensed LibGuides from Springshare this past summer as part of a complete redesign of our library’s site. It has been a great addition and gives our subject liaisons complete control over the content they want/need to share with the students and faculty in their subject areas. One question that quickly arose was the possibility of using book cover images from Syndetics, versus the default images available from Amazon in the “Books From The Catalog” box. Staff members in our library systems dept. came up with an initial solution which I was able to further customize. Below is the result of that process.
- Add the “Books from the Catalog” box to your guide
- After adding the box, click “Add a New Book”
- Complete all of the relevant boxes for your title
- The key is using the “Covert Art (Optional)” box. Instead of clicking the Amazon button, you’ll need to get the URL from Syndetics:
- Open a new tab or browser window and go to the catalog
- Search for the book in the catalog and go into the item record
- Click “Reviews and More” under the small Syndetics cover image
- Click the “Cover image” link. This will take you to the large image you’ll use for your image in LibGuides
- Right click on the cover image and select “Properties”
- Highlight or double click to select all of the text in the “Location” field and and copy the link by pressing ctrl-c or right-click and “copy”
- You’re now ready to go back to LibGuides in your other tab or browser window
- Back in the “Add a New Book” box, paste the link you copied in the “location” field from the Syndetics cover image
- Hit the return key, click on a different field, or just click the Add Book button if you’re finished and ready to close the box
Bonus feature – by copying and pasteing the link from the catalog to the item record in the “URL (Optional)” field it will make book title and cover image link back to the catalog item record!
New Website Launch!
August 5, 2009
This past Monday (Aug. 3, 2009) we brought a 9 month project to conclusion (or maybe it’s just the start) and updated our library’s website (http://library.richmond.edu). It’s been a very rewarding and enlightening effort and has helped us to better understand our users’ expectations and beliefs about what our site should offer. We’ve been tracking our site several years now via Google Analytics and were able to base a lot of design decisions based on actual site usage. The pages most frequently visited include our library catalog, databases A – Z page, subject/major and course specific guides, our journal locator search tool, course reserves, and citing sources guide.
After reviewing other library sites, and using the Google Analytics data the design team created a template which includes the following features:
- A search tool built into the site header so that our main search tools are available on every page within the site. This includes links to our library catalog, databases page, journal locator, search box for our subject/major guides, and a site search box utilizing the university’s Google Mini Appliance.
- Always present “Ask a Librarian” and Live Chat buttons allowing users to get in touch and ask questions via their preferred method.
- A horizontal navigation bar persistent throughout the site to ease navigation between the different sections.
- A standard footer which will also provide access to important information regardless of which page the user is on within the site
As part of our redesign we licensed LibGuides from Springshare and are migrating all of our subject/major and course guides to this new platform. LibGuids is a database driven system and makes creating and editing guides incredibility simple and straightforward. It’s also a very flexible system; by applying the same stylesheets we have been able to replicate our main site’s template on the LibGuides server. This creates a transparent transition back and forth that most users will be unaware of.
In addition to LibGuides, we also licensed LibAnswers from Springshare. LibAnswers is a database driven question and answer/knowledgebase allowing users to submit questions which after being answered can be added to the publicly visible set of questions to aid others with similar questions or needs. We’re rolling this portion of the new site out a little more slowly in order to see how we can best utilize it.
As mentioned above, this has been a long process. Key members of the design team include Jim Hall (who really helped to develop the look, feel, and functionality of the site), Becka Boyd (graphic artist extraordinaire), Althea McMillan and Alem Areki (providing expert system recommendations as well as coding key features of the site). The other key aspect of our redesign has been the transition to the unversity’s new CMS, Cascade Server from Hannon Hill. It’s a very flexible system and better prepares us to quickly adapt to our user’s changing needs over time.
Kevin Creamer our Director of Teaching, Learning, and Technology has also posted about our new site and its features. Read his post for another perspective!
New UR Libraries Beta Website
June 19, 2009
This week we announced the public preview of our new website. We also posted a link to the current site alerting visitors to visit the new site and give it a test drive. This project has been a collaboration between staff from the library, the UR communications office and web development group. It officially began with our first planning meeting in October 2008, and we’re very happy to be at this point. The key features we’re implementing include a persistent search box which is in the site header allowing users to search our resources (catalog, journal subscriptions, databases, research and course guides, and site) from any page they happen to be on. Beside the search box is a link to launch a pop-up chat window allowing the user to continue using our site while getting live assistance. There’s also a standard navigation bar which is part of the header allowing for consistent navigation from every page on the site. We still have much to do and numerous refinements to add but I believe we’re off to a great start. Another part of the redesign is our transition to UR’s new content management system, Cascade Server from Hannon Hill. It’s a major improvement over our current CMS. It creates very clean code and is much more flexible for future changes and development.
We have also licensed LibGuides from Springshare for our subject/major and course specific guides. LibGuides is a hosted service and lets you build incredibly focused guides for your users. There are some libraries that use LibGuides to host their entire website, which shows you how flexible the product is. LibGuides is also easily customized by using custom cascading style sheets and we’ve been able to apply our new site’s template so that it fully blends with the rest of our new site.
You can preview our beta site at http://xlibrary.richmond.edu and I’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions! The site will stay in beta until early August when we’ll retire the current site.
Does Technology Make Us Happier?
May 23, 2009
A few months ago comedian Louis C.K. appeared on the Late Show with Conan O’Brien and shared his thoughts on the numerous technological wonders we all take for granted. Watch this clip and decide for yourself, does technology make you happier or leave you frustrated?
Moo Minicards For Your Library
March 5, 2009
During the fall semester I created a Flickr account for our library to host photos of the library as well as pictures taken at our various events throughout the year. When I received approval to purchase a Flickr Pro account, we were offered 10 free MiniCards from Moo.com, a Flickr partner located in the UK. Moo is an online printing service and will put your photos on about anything you desire. One of their more popular products are their MiniCards. They are smaller than a business card, but large enough to display a photo on one side, and custom text on the other. I decided to create some sample cards to advertise our library contact information, website and catalog. After sharing the samples with various groups, we ordered a set of 100 MiniCards. We placed them on our Main Service Desk along with our staff business cards. We set them out in mid-January and they quickly disappeared over the course of a few weeks. Are they necessary for the library to function? No. Will our students and faculty forget about us? No. Can they remind interested users how to get in touch with us as well as generate lots of “good will?” Absolutely! Below are photos of the front and back of our cards. A set of 100 MiniCards only costs $19.99 plus a small amount for shipping.
Improv Everywhere Strikes Again
February 11, 2009
If you haven’t seen any of Improv Everywhere’s “work” then you’re missing out. Their missions (their term, not mine) focus on bringing a bit of randomness and peculiarity to mundane situations. That’s where it gets fun. Often people don’t quite know how to react, but it always seems to bring them out of their comfort zone, which leaves them open to actually connecting with other human beings. That’s exactly what happens in this new video. Here’s the background: this is a very busy subway hub in New York, so you can imagine the attitudes during morning rush-hour. However something happens that completely changes the entire experience and possibly the rest of their day. It’s interesting to watch all of the smiles break out on the commuters’ faces as a completely random, but uniquely human experience happens to them. It breaks their focus on the day’s problems they’re probably already stressing over. Watch the video below or read more about the mission!
Webtools and Possibilties
November 5, 2008
I came across yet another “upload your photo and have fun with it” site the other day, but found this one to be quite good at manipulating the image and making it “fit” with the intended placement. The effects are nice and entertaining. Anyway, it’s just another example of how the internet is replacing the desktop as the preferred place for applications, etc. That said, It’ll be a long time before I give up Picassa for photo organizing and management of pictures of our family and kids!
The site is http://photofunia.com. Oh, and you haven’t seen Yearbook Yourself yet, you should probably stop by there first!
I made three photos with Photofunia, and here’s the full set.
My Wordle
November 2, 2008
Robert Frost’s poetry has long spoken to me, especially “Stopping by Woods…” Thanks to a heads-up from friends Eric Palmer and Tom Woodward, I’ve used Wordle to create a word cloud with appropriate coloring:
Click the image for full size and visit Wikipedia’s entry on this poem to learn more about it…
LITA 2008 – 5 Minute Madness Videos Online
October 21, 2008
I attended LITA 2008 which started on Oct. 17 and finished this past Sunday (Oct. 19). One of my favorite sessions was the 5 Minute Madness presentation on Saturday morning. Each presenter was restricted to 5 minutes to discuss a topic of their choosing with as many slides as they could squeeze in. I had originally planned on video recording my former co-worker Keith Weimer, but decided to capture the whole session due to the broad range of topics. I’ve processed the videos and have uploaded them to a YouTube playlist. I’m embedding the full playlist below but will also link directly to the list on YouTube. There are a lot of good sessions, so take a few minutes and watch some of the clips. You can also head over to the Eclectic Librarian for some brief coverage of each topic.
Full embedded playlist (mouse over to move between clips):
or:
Playlist – http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A1F2683346CC7224
iPhone & Flip Mino Package Comparison
October 7, 2008
I ordered two Flip Video Minos as part of this year’s equipment requests for work. I want our group to experiment with them in making tutorials, video blogs, etc. to help promote the library’s services and collections. After receiving the first one, I instantly recognized the packaging, and it had Apple written all over it down to the black matte finish on the box. Even after taking the Flip out of its sleeve you’re presented with a flip-open box which elegantly holds the device. Apple’s impact is far and wide…
