I’ve finally managed to find a few minutes to play with the LibGuides demo… and, like any service, it’s a bit scary when you don’t know what you’re doing! (I don’t know if that’s reassuring or not, if you discover that even a geek like me gets a bit worried when confronted by a new resource?!)

But I’m very happy to report that, not only did I find it very easy to start putting my guide together, I genuinely think that you’ll find it quite easy too. Here’s what I did:

Created a New Guide

After logging into the admin panel, I created a new guide. You can either start with a blank page, or use an existing guide as a template. For the moment, I’m starting with a blank page – but when we get the system for real we’ll develop a few templates that should make the whole process even easier.

You give it a title and description – and you’re away!

First Screen

You start with an essentially blank page, with three columns. A wide column in the middle, and two narrower ones either side. The only thing there already is a “staff profile” box on the right.

At the top of each column there’s a very handy “Add New Box” link. Click this, and a window pops up asking you what you want to add. There are quite a few choices – but the simplest thing to do is to try a couple out at a time.

What’s even better is that when you make your choice, you get a description of exactly what the box does – you can change your mind, and nothing is created until you hit the “Create Box” button.

I choose a “Links Boxes: Simple Web Links” box, add a title for the box, then create the box.

Adding Links

Firstly you can also add some introductory text at the top of the link box, if you wish. Then, there’s a button to add a link – so one click later and I have a new window on-screen. This looks busy to start with, but don’t worry – as with everything else, it’s simple to use.

Firstly, do you want to create a brand new link – or do you want to use a link that’s already on another guide?

Create a New Link

Enter a title, URL and a description. If you want, you can also add an icon to explain whether it’s a password protected resource, or something similar. Alongside the icon, you can paste a link to an explanatory page.

Simple, really.

Reuse an Existing Link

This it where it gets very interesting. Choose which guide the link is already in, start typing the title and LibGuides will show you any matches. If you hit the “Reuse Link” button straight away, it will be added to your page – including any description that was created for the link in the original page.

What’s more, if the link is edited on the original page, your version of the link will be altered to match. Nice!

If you prefer, before hitting the “Reuse Link” button, you can choose to “make a copy” of it instead – this will add the link to your page, but now changes on the original page will not be reflected on yours.