Rethinking Subject Guides

In August of 2014 I began collecting examples of comparable guides from other institutions (mostly universities) to see what the best practice was for organising and displaying information for students. The guides that I inherited were originally intended to be temporary and replaced by something more specific later on - however this had not happened for some time. From what I was able to collect elsewhere I noticed several things; of the examples that I didn't like one was essentially a letter, rather than a list of resources, while others were very wordy, too short, contained almost no visuals, or were dumping grounds for hyperlinks. I felt that non of these styles would appeal to further education students looking for simple and easy to understand information. Other guides contained almost no branding at all which I felt was a missed opportunity to ‘pimp the Library.’

The guides that I did like were visually striking - they looked exciting and inviting. I wanted my students to be interested in the guides I produced, so I decided to incorporate visuals into my new design. Other design elements that I decided to include in the new guides included a photograph of myself so that students could easily identify me (an idea I copied from this guide), and a list of classmarks relevant to the subject. I also decided to separate article databases from media databases as I found that some students were looking for academic publications in the wrong place. After reading about the college’s push towards employability, I also decided to incorporate a list of professional bodies.

I didn't want to pad out the guides with too much information, but I did want to include some information on boolean search terms (which I've noticed are underutilised by students in their search activity) and a brief section on evaluating information. Quite a few students were willing to use websites in their assessment without giving consideration to the quality of the information included. I thought that a quick nudge about evaluating the quality of information sources would be a good idea. I finishes the guides with a small bit of information on citation management options and where to find more information about referencing. After research assistance, referencing is the second most popular session requested by staff and students.

I based all the guides on a single template, so they read similarly, with the exception of ESOL. I felt that this particular guide warranted more attention than the others, especially after reading this article by Claire Walker and Amanda Click. I found their discussion of using a controlled vocabulary very useful - students for whom English is a second language often have trouble with Library terms like 'reservation,' 'extension,' and even 'borrow.' I included a simple vocabulary, and made sure this guide was very visual, only showcasing material available at my home campus.

 

 

 

Subject guides for ESOL, Human Resources, Retail, Business, Legal Studies, and Administration.

Feedback from staff and students was overwhelmingly positive. One student excitedly exclaimed "You made this for us!?" After seeing guides for other subjects some members of academic staff began to request subject guides tailored to their own course areas. Overall I felt that the exercise was an excellent way to advertise the Library and the resources we offer, introduce the Subject Liaison programme, and incorporate feedback from academic staff into the production of instructional materials.

One thing I didn't perhaps fully consider was the use of images. I used Creative Commons images sourced from Flickr, and tried to keep the selection as relevant to the subject as possible. I also used images that were darker, to try to play up the white text on the front. After a couple of months I eventually replaced the darker images with the more colourful options you see above. I feel these are more inviting and visually appealing.

The guides themselves will never be finished - I have designed them with constant revision in mind. Eventually I hope that as a department we move away from the ‘print’ style that we currently use, towards a more interactive style of subject guide. Developing the guides gave me a finer understanding of each subject area, and allowed me to pinpoint areas that are generally under-served - Administration, and Retail, for example.