Heather Close
Reference and Research Services Coordinator
Alberta Legislature Library
The way we were…
• Limited access to SharePoint
• Static and labour intensive bibliographies and ‘Web
Guides’
• Lack of full-text, dynamic content
• Scattered services
• No statistics
Developing the Research Guides
• Goal:
• Dynamic content-rich web-based portals structured on the Library taxonomy,
aligned with other Library services, maintained by Library Staff.
• Process:
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•
•
•
•
•
Develop the taxonomy and apply to current services (Completed May 2013)
Build the foundation; identify core resources (Jun-Sep 2013)
Purchase the software (Sep 2013)
Design the site: integrating current services and core resources (Oct-Nov 2013)
Soft launch and presentation (December 2013)
Assign areas of responsibility (February 2014)
Breadcrumb Trail
Contact
Pages
Lock = Licensed content
Search Widget
The Taxonomy
• Reviewed:
• Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus
http://www.thesaurus.gc.ca/
• UK’s Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV)
http://doc.esd.org.uk/IPSV/2.00.html
• Compared:
• Government News Releases
• Caucus and Party websites
• Loosely based on portfolios
• General enough to weather department changes
• Tested and mapped headings to current library services
Building the Foundation of Each Subject Guide
• Define the categories that would be the building blocks:
• Databases
• Organizations
• Statistics
• Identify the core resources
• One Librarian with the assistance of a technician
Links to EBSCO
A-Z for library
holdings and
e-journal
access
Areas of Responsibility
Energy
• Librarians assigned two to three
topical areas each
• All reference staff members
contribute with suggestions or
assigned tasks
• Training (Jan-Feb 2014)
• Small assignments:
• Review the core (Feb 2014)
• Add a Think Tanks page (Mar 2014)
• Add and maintain the “Newly
Discovered” box (Apr 2014)
Economics
and
Finance
Health
Government and Politics
Legislative
Process
and Affairs
Education
and
Training
The way we were…
• Limited access to SharePoint
• Static and labour intensive bibliographies and ‘Web
Guides’
• Lack of full-text, dynamic content
• Scattered services
• No statistics
• Goal:
• Dynamic content-rich web-based portals structured on the Library taxonomy, aligned
with other Library services, maintained by Library Staff.
• Static
• Citations & lists
• Print and pdf
• Unstructured
• Scattered services
• Labour intensive
• Dynamic
• Content-rich
• Web-based
• Structured
• Aligned services
• Efficiently maintained by
Library staff
Ongoing Challenges
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Promotion and communications
Determining client needs
Reliance on old pages
Off-site access
Integration with varied and changing platforms
Measuring use (statistics)
Staff expectations and training
Thank You
Heather Close
Reference and Research Services Coordinator
Alberta Legislature Library