[Web4lib] LibGuides

[John Fereira]

Laura Harris wrote:
>
> Also, it seems your place of work also has Blackboard - keep in mind that
> with the API, you (or faculty members) can put content boxes from LibGuides
> directly into Blackboard. Here's a blog entry I wrote about that:
>
> http://llyfrgellydd.info/?p=231
I'm using the LibGuides API in a Drupal module I wrote that pulls in  a 
list of LibGuides (Subject Guides or Course Guides) either by category 
or tag.  

The API, IMHO, stretches the definition of API.  It's really a form that 
will produces a URL which can but cut-n-pasted onto another web page.  
It's not very flexible, and doesn't expose all of the features that are 
URL addressable (for example, with the right incantation you can get a 
block of html which represents the tag cloud).   You can't, for example, 
get a list of LibGuides which are in a named category *AND* have a 
specific tag.

Still, it's worth looking at the API in terms of how you may want to 
manage LibGuides for your institution.  Creating a controlled vocabulary 
for Categories and Tags early on will allow you to make better use of 
the API.   For example, if you maintain Subject based LibGuides and 
Course based lib guides, tagging the course guides with something like 
"Course Guide" (and the course number) will make it easy to pull in just 
the Course Guides.  Establish a Category/Tagging policy early on and 
you'll save time later.