In this Issue:
Things I Wish I Knew... Before Joining Springshare
Meet Rachel Langlois, Newest Springy Member
#TeamSpringy
The day I got my MLIS, I felt like I was joining the Justice League! At last, the hallowed hall of knowledge was now my profession. I put on my research cape and never looked back…
From public, government, special, military and school libraries, I gained the tools of my trade and built my own utility belt of epic Batman proportions. So getting to join #TeamSpringshare this past week was kinda like Wonder Woman saying, "Sure! You can borrow my bracelets and use my lasso."
And in one short week I thought, wow, there are SO MANY things I wish I knew before joining Springshare. A librarian superpower is the willingness to share.
So in that tradition, here are three tips every Springy Admin needs in their utility belts… cause #SpringyPower never fails.
Tip #1: Control Your Assets Before They Control You!
It's so great to build guides and map assets and create kewl stuff you get a little outta control… before you know it, your 25+ regular users have created all kinds of links, widgets, and RSS feeds. Ack! Somewhere in the training process, they learned to make stuff better and quickly deleted those assets they didn't like…or so you thought.
Fast forward a few months and while editing an asset you see from the master assets list, some of those have zeros next to them…huh. You wonder what that's all about as you search the FAQ's and see this: http://support.springshare.com/libguides/managingassets
Oh. My. Word. You quickly export a list of unmapped assets and see to your horror, the list is over 879! So, what's a Springy Admin to do? Well, thanks to the fabulous anticipatory wizardry of #SpringyGurus, just email them (or shall I say 'us' now) and they can delete all unmapped assets or all unmapped assets of a specific type. Hooray! Justice served. But wait…riddle me this: how do you stop this from happening all over again?
Note: We can only delete ALL unmapped Assets (includes Databases, as Databases are also considered Assets) or unmapped Assets of a specific type (i.e. Databases, Book, Link, Document). We cannot delete a specific list of unmapped Assets from a list you send to us.
Clean-Out Upmapped Assets: Assign yourself, or another Admin, days where you routinely clean out the unmapped assets. That way, they never get the drop on you again. #justiceserved
Tip #2: Just Because You're an Admin, Doesn't Mean You Know All the Latest Updates
How many of us placed a support ticket with Springshare only to cringe with embarrassment when you managed to get to your professional development reading and see….oh yeah, there was an update.
And oh yeah… there's the answer to my question I just emailed them. *awkward*
Stay Current With Updates & Tips: Sign up for the Springshare Blog and schedule regular monthly training on your Springshare products. Take the time to learn and don't be 'That gal or That guy'.
Tip #3: Customizations are Kewl, But Can Confuse Noobs When They Don't Line Up w/ Training
So, remember that great customization you did in LibCal? You renamed Spaces to Meeting Rooms, and you tricked out your site with all this SWEET CSS/JS and library staff and patrons love it!
Enter the newly hired staff member. As a Springy Admin, you love helping them onboard with all this great documentation, Springshare videos, sessions and FAQ's. Awesome! Yeah… it's only later you realize, oh wait, that FAQ/Video etc. is not the same as our site….*sigh* no wonder they're confused!
Customizations are wonderful, but you need to make sure staff know what is customized and how it jives with the Springshare product they are learning. Save time, heartache, frustration and all those puzzled lost looks ;)
Create a Staff FAQ: Create a PRIVATE/RESTRICTED LibGuide for all your Staff FAQ's :) Once again, knowledge to the rescue. Your private FAQ utility belt add-on…besides, everybody knows Batman was truly the world's greatest detective who had #WickedMad research skillz!
