We’ve embarked on a tidy-up of library Google accounts, as these have grown in a haphazard way over the years. Our goal is to tighten up security, as well as make it simpler to provide access to the tools people want to use. They include many useful features that we could be making better use of, so it’s worth becoming familiar with them.

So what are we using Google products for?

Quite a lot, actually:

• Google Analytics, for recording usage statistics about the library website, Summon, UCRR, Kā Kohika, LibGuides, and LibCal;
• Google My Business, to manage our Google business profile that users see when googling us or getting directions via maps. Includes hours, map locations, photos, user reviews, posts to users, etc. Also includes interesting insights about user behaviour, including how they found us, what action they took (directions, visited the website, phoned us, etc);
• YouTube, to upload videos to our library and Te Rua Makerspace channels (via our Google brand accounts);
• Google Search Console, for keeping an eye on Google index coverage of our websites.

What would we like you to do?

If you’d like to have access to any of the above services, sign up for a Google account (yes, you can just use your UC email address), and let eServices know which products you would like to access. If you’ve been using the eng@libr.canterbury.ac.nz generic account, this will still be available. However, we’ve updated to a more secure password and we’d recommend switching to your own account to avoid Google verification issues that arise when accounts are used on multiple devices.

Further information

We’ll be recording information about our Google accounts on this Camelot page. However, given that Google services tend to change fairly rapidly, we won’t be maintaining detailed information about how to use each service. If you need assistance, contact eServices and we’ll do our best to help.

Ngā mihi,
Donna
Library eServices