SpringyNews: Acts of Green

At ACRL, 2015 in Portland, Paul Gallagher from Wayne State University, stopped by Springshare's booth and said, "integrating LibGuides with our Blackboard Learning Management System has blown traffic through the roof". 

Here's what Paul had to say.

Q. How did you integrate LibGuides with your Blackboard LMS?

In conjunction with our partners at Wayne State’s Computing and Information Technology Division, we developed a system that adds a link into the main navigation for all courses in the LMS.  When clicked, this link points to a “middleware” server that detects the class from the address, and connects this to the relevant subject guide created in LibGuides.  The library also developed an administrative interface that allows our librarians to change what classes connect to what guides, and to quickly adapt to new course offerings.  We can also connect a class to a course specific guide – say, for Art History 1000 – or to a more general art history guide used for all classes.  It’s simple, but amazingly flexible.​

Q. That sounds amazing! But why did you seek this level of integration?

The library has long desired to be "integrated" into the LMS, as we are uniquely suited to provide resources and information literacy instruction in support of teaching and learning.  The challenge however, is scalability. We can’t actually have librarians embed themselves into the over 5,000 classes offered each semester – so we needed a more technological way to integrate ourselves.  In the past, we’ve done things like have a "tab" that pointed to the library homepage, but that doesn’t present materials curated for specific classes, which is what will have the greatest impact.  By providing a link to resources specific to the course or discipline – and providing our liaison contact info – it is a much more valuable way to be visible in the LMS and participate in classes.

Q. You stated, "it drove traffic through the roof" - care to elaborate?

In terms of numbers, in 2009 – before the integration – our yearly visits were around 60,000, but in 2010 it more than doubled at 173,000.  In 2011 we climbed up to 319,000!  Currently, our yearly visits continue to grow, so the system has helped to consistently keep our use above our pre-integration levels, with 2014 having around 331,000 visitors. We're expecting a big increase again this year, as we're only one semester into 2015 but have received more than half of last year's totals from the LMS. 

Q. How do librarians feel about this integration?

From the librarians' perspective it’s a win-win, we get to be integrated into all WSU courses and can greatly increase the utility of our work with LibGuides. They also appreciate being able to curate resources with multiple entry points and inherent reuse – guides don’t get replaced each semester as a course does.

Q. What else have you done to improve traffic?

While our LMS work has helped to get patrons into the system, it is equally important to have strong content to keep them coming back. We have a "LibGuides Team" that works with our guide creators on best practices, conducts training, and helps with overall administration. Their hard work cannot be understated, as they are the real champions to our guides being so successful. A special thanks to all of them for their hard work.

LibGuides Integration Inside WSU Blackboard