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Library / Blackboard Integration

Librarians and Blackboard Administrators who are working to facilitate, study, and assess possibilities for library integration with Blackboard.

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  • How should we label the link to LibGuides content in Blackboard

    Posted by Stephen Francoeur (he/him) on May 16, 2018 at 4:36 pm

    At Baruch, our plan is to integrate traditional LibGuides (subject-specific research guides and course-specific guides) as well as e-reserves course pages into Blackboard courses. We’re trying to solve the problem of how to label the link to all that content (the link will appear in the left navigation in every Blackboard course). It’s worth noting that the top navigation in Blackboard already features a link labeled “Baruch Library” that takes users to the library home page. Now we are rethinking that link as well as thinking about the new link to the left navigation that we’ll have to add.

    Here’s a screenshot of an empty course page in Blackboard that gives some idea of the design dilemma we’re facing: https://www.screencast.com/t/AsWDtGfl

    Whatever we use as that link label, it has to be generic enough to cover the possibility that it might light lead to just a research guide or a research guide AND an e-reserves course page. We plan to test some options this summer, things along these lines:

    • Library resources
    • Library resources for your course
    • Library content
    • Research resources
    • Library sources

    How have others dealt with this labeling problem?

1 reply
    • Linda Miles
      Participant
      May 17, 2018 at 3:18 pm

      Hi, Stephen. I apologize, but for some reason I did not receive your phone message until just a moment ago.

      If you want to make both a LibGuide and an E-Reserves course available via “Automagic,” you need to set up the “Library Page” (check out Jennifer Poggiali’s documentation half way down this page http://guides.hostos.cuny.edu/LibAppsLTI/Setup) —I assume you may already be familiar with this, but just in case…

      I suspect you are instead wondering how to label the option in the students’ left-hand navigation. I believe Jennifer called hers by the name of their library there at Lehman, but I also hear you about the confusion this might cause based on the fact that there is already a library tab that leads to your library home page.

      Here at Hostos, we have opted against the “library page” configuration, and we call our “Automagic” menu item Library Research Help. There is no complication with needing to provide access to e-reserves as well.

      We are, however, going to in some cases manually import a second guide and add a new menu item for students. For instance, we will be adding a “Textbook” menu item and importing OER textbook materials in a LibGuide.

      I kind of like “Library resources for your course,” although it is very long.

      I hope this helps,

      Linda

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