Friday, February 6, 2009

LibGuides as Pathfinders

At ALA in Anaheim this summer, I discovered LibGuides, and my teaching has changed dramatically because of it. Known in the university library world but new to the school library world, this amazing service will transplant your pathfinders into the 2.0 (r)age. My students love it, the other librarian I work with loves it, my consortium of Southern California independent school librarians love it - we all agree - it makes teaching research easier.
With a flexible and easy-to-use application, you can use links, text, RSS feeds, Word documents, embedded slide shows, embedded videos, and more to make multi-page web-based pathfinders for you kids. It is easy to put a LibGuides widget on your homepage, link to LibGuides via Facebook, and more.
Going a few steps beyond wikis in flexibility (but not necessarily in collaboration, although you may give your students an add a link option in LibGuides), my school instantly became a LibGuides school from the first research pathfinder. Buffy Hamilton, The Unquiet Librarian, put together a slideshow about library pathfinders from yesterday to pathfinders of today, with LibGuides being an example of today's 2.0 pathfinders.
Although there is a fee for subscribing to LibGuides, we have found that it is quite worth the investment.



Take a look at our LibGuides, and explore what others are doing too! I am excited to see what elementary school librarians are doing with LibGuides. Our K-6 Librarian hasn't made one yet, but hopefully will soon. I can predict that it will be useful for that age range as well.

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