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Introduction to LibGuides

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Your Assets

An introductory guide to the basic features of LibGuides v2.

Overview

Within LibGuides, assets are "content objects" that contain some piece of information and can be reused across many guides. Specifically, assets are the following LibGuides content types:

  • Link
  • Media / Widget
  • Book from the Catalog
  • Document / File
  • RSS feeds

In LibGuides v1, an asset forever lives in the box from where it was created. In LibGuides v2, assets are now stored centrally in an Asset Manager and can exist independent of a box or guide. This means an asset can be created before a guide is even started.

Assets can be reused in other guides either by linking to it (mapping) or duplicating it (copying). Reusing assets are an important part of the new LibGuides platform as it makes it easy to

  • centrally maintain common and canonical resources.
  • share a wide knowledge base across all subjects.
  • keep track of your resources.

 

Manage Assets

Assets menu option found under the Content menuThe Asset management screen can be found under the Content menu in the LibGuides Universal Command Bar.

It can also be located as a shortcut from the LibGuides Dashboard.

From the Assets Management screen it is possible to see a list of all the assets that have been created in the libraries. The asset name, description, creator, created date and how many guides have it mapped are displayed as a list.

An asset can be edited or deleted from the Asset Management screen. Be careful when deleting as asset from this screen as it will also remove mapped versions of it too!

There are several things you can do on this screen:

  • Add new assets - these include URL links, books from a catalog, documents/files, media/widgets or RSS feeds.
  • Modify Assets - click the edit button in the Actions column to edit that asset. This will also update any mapped versions of this asset.
  • Delete Assets - click the x button in the Actions column to delete an asset. This will also delete all mapped versions of this asset.
  • Filter the Table - you can filter by asset type (link, book, etc.), name, description, and creation date by clicking on the table column header.
  • Export Assets - Using the links just above the top right of the table you can export your assets as an Excel spreadsheet or a PDF. NB: This action will only export the assets displayed on the screen -- depending on how many assets are shown per page.

Reusing Assets

A powerful feature of LibGuides is the easy reuse of any asset. Assets can be easily reused by mapping or copying from an original asset. An original asset is an asset that was created from scratch.

Reuse an existing link

Mapped Assets

A mapped asset, or a "reused" asset, is directly linked to an original asset. If the original asset is changed in any way then all mapped versions to that asset will be updated immediately. A mapped asset can only be edited by the original creator (or by an administrator).

Copied Assets

Make a Copy option

A copied asset works a bit differently than a mapped asset. A copied asset is a duplication of an original asset that retains all the same information, yet becomes an entirely new asset with a new owner. A copied asset will not update when the original asset gets updated.

Asset Types

A link is a fundamental element of the web and LibGuides makes it easy to create one.

Here are some examples of link assets

Here is an example of an embeddable media widget taken from YouTube.

The widget code is usually only a few lines of code that links back to the source. Video files can't be directly embedded into a guide.

A book from the catalog asset only requires a few bits of metadata and SpringShare will populate a description, cover art and additional information from their Syndetics account. You can add in a link to the BC catalog along with a call number to make it linkable.

Documents such as PDFs or Word documents can be uploaded and hosted by SpringShare's servers. The document link can be password protected if you like.

An RSS feed can include a name, number of links to include, if the feed requires a proxy and how to display descriptions for each link.

Here is an example RSS feed from Wired Science.

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Deleting an Asset

Deleting an asset from a guide

When you delete an asset from within a guide you will only remove that specific instance of the asset. If the asset to be deleted is a mapped or copied asset then the original asset will not be removed.

Remove Mapped Asset popup

Deleting an asset from the Asset Management page

When you delete an asset from the Asset Management page you will also remove ALL mapped versions along with it. Be careful when you make this choice as will be permanently gone! Copied assets will not be removed if the original asset is deleted.

Delete Asset popup