In this Issue:
Recommended Training
LibGuides v2 Migration Training:
- Getting your v1 content ready for migration
- Helpful utilities for a smooth transition
- Schedule migration and 'Going Live' date
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California State University, Fullerton Migrated to LibGuides v2
Five Months Ago - And They Couldn't Be Happier
Colleen Greene, LibGuides Admin at California State University, Fullerton Library describes their early January migration to LibGuides v2 as a "piece of cake". Was Colleen a smidge nervous? Absolutely, but like the 1,200 other sites that have migrated to v2, everything worked out perfectly.
We tapped Colleen to share their migration story as many of you are in the middle of planning your migration. From her library to yours, check out her extremely helpful tips, suggestions, and advice.>
An Ounce of Preparation is Worth a Pound of Cure
Colleen requested her v2 Beta site when they first became available, giving her ample time to learn and play around with the new features. She started work on skinning and customizing it to match their website branding and visual design immediately. Staff training took place over the Summer of 2014 and they migrated their content later that Fall.
Prior to migration, Colleen and the Library Systems team worked with librarians on cleaning up their v1 guides. She tapped a student assistant to take on a lot of this clean-up work, making it an easier task for everyone involved. This student assistant is going on to Library School to obtain her MLIS and working on this project allowed her to, "develop proficiency using a key industry tool."
During clean-up, the team made heavy use of migration reports to get their v1 content ready. Here's what they did:
- Checked for / removed broken links
- Removed duplicate content (boxes, links, etc.)
- Deleted old/unused guides
- Converted links in Rich-Text boxes into Link boxes
- Converted widgets in Rich-Text boxes into Media/Widget boxes
During the clean-up phase staff attended lots of hands-on training sessions, read the LibGuides migration documentation, and watched the migration training video. They felt secure and confident in using LibGuides v2 prior to going live. Colleen and her team even tapped a few "change-receptive LibGuides super users" to build out some sample guides well ahead of migration so that other authors can see examples of what v2 can do (tabbed boxes, mixed content, gallery box type, etc.)
Colleen regularly communicated with the staff about important deadlines to make sure everything was on track, particularly in the days immediately before and after the v2 launch.
Pro-Tip
Tap early adopters to build sample guides in your v2 system showcasing the new features. This way, authors can visualize the potential of their v2 guides.
Post-Migration: Thoughts & Tips
The migration process was a "piece of cake" and staff are loving LibGuides v2. "Springshare has an excellent track record with customer service and technical support, so having that level of confidence in a vendor eased most of that concern."
These Springshare items were invaluable to Colleen and her team during the process and for "managing expectations of our librarians".