LibGuides have released a mobile version for LibGuides pages, which most “Smart” phones should pick up automatically, or, if not, users can go to http://canterbury.libguides.com/mobile.php. There is also a link to the mobile devices view on the bottom of every LibGuides screen. This is a very simplified and cut down version of the content, which is intended to make it much easier for users to see on their mobile devices.

However, the mobile version relies on some LibGuides features that we have chosen not to use to the full extent, so we may have to change some practices so that the mobile version works better. For example, the first link is Featured Guides, followed by Popular and Recent, and Subject and Author are put down to the fourth and fifth options, while we have chosen to list all subject guides by name on the usual homepage. See the image below, taken from an iPhone emulator http://iphonetester.com/

There are a number of problems for us with this layout, some of which are listed below. SpringShare says we cannot change this version of the mobile interface, but can create one of our own, which I am investigating. In the meantime we need to be aware of what our mobile users are seeing, and maybe make some changes.

Current issues that require your input
1) The link to subjects goes to the subject categories, which we have chosen not to use much, but will probably have to now. LibGuides assumes all guides will go into “subject” area, and we initially set up 6 subject areas; Arts, Business and Economics, Education, Engineering, Law and Science. However, we haven’t really used these categories recently, as they put in unnecessary double clicking to navigate to subject pages, and we have preferred to use an alphabetical listing. This means that not all current guides will be in their correct subject areas. For this reason, it is important that all authors go to the list of guides by subject (go to the Subject Guides homepage, click on Browse All 65 Guides, then choose the By Subject tab) to check to see that their guides are appearing in the right subject category or categories. It is possible to assign a guide to more than one category eg Psychology in both Arts and Science, Mathematics in both Science and Engineering. Let Library IT know where your guides should be as it is done in the Admin module.

2) We have actually taken the Featured Guides option off the Subject Guides home page as it has never been used, so if you go to that link there are no featured guides. It was originally the intention that this be updated every week, but no-one has asked for their guide to be featured for the last 2 years, so on the website, we’ve disabled this link. Because this is the first link for the mobile page we may have to think about featuring one or two guides each week. So I need people to nominate a guide to feature regularly, as if it is going to be used, it should be changed frequently.

A UC version of the mobile page

I will work on a mobile version of the page that will work in better with our practices. If anyone has any ideas about what this should look like, please forward them to Library IT.

Catherine (Library IT)