This is part 3 of my longer LibTech 2011 conference presentation, "LibGuides on Steroids: Expanding the User Base of LibGuides to Support Library Instruction and Justify Workload."

1. LibGuides aren’t perfect Continuing Problems Associated With Subject Guides/ Pathfinders

2. LibGuides aren’t perfect Continuing problems associated with subject guides: Who are the intended users of subject guides? How do we get them to use subject guides? How do we know that users learn from subject guides? How do we justify the workload of subject guides, if we can’t answer these questions?

3. Who are subject guides actually created for? Students? Researchers? subject guides relieve reference librarians of repetitive questions (Cipolla, 1980) and thus raise staff morale (Jackson, 1984) production of guides is considered part of the traditional role of subject librarians (Pinfield, 2001) “important library publications” (Dunsmore, 2002)

4. Who are subject guides actually created for? Students? Researchers? used for staff training (Jackson & Pellack, 2004) “proof of expertise in a subject area, …quantitative measure of performance during…reviews” (Reeb & Gibbons, 2004) While we create subject guides for students, we also create them for ourselves.

5. Marketing subject guides The literature is unanimous: Market them via instruction! (Adebonojo, 2010; Brazzeal, 2006; Foster et al., 2010; Greene, 2008; Jackson, 2004; McMullin, 2010; Miner & Alexander, 2010; Reeb & Gibbons, 2004; Staley, 2007)

6. Do we know that subject guides increase learning? Guide availability doesn’t guarantee their use (Hemming, 2005; Morris, 2010; Staley, 2007; Vileno, 2007) Librarians invest a great deal of time on subject guides, but student use is low (Reeb & Gibbons, 2004) Guides reflect librarians’ mental models, not those of students or faculty (Reeb & Gibbons, 2004; Neilson, 2004) If guides are associated with course faculty rather than the library, will student use and learning increase?

7. A word about workload The average subject guide/pathfinder takes an experienced librarian between 8 and 20 hours to produce (Kapoun, 1995; Wilbert, 1981). The more electronic resources a subject guide contains contains, the more unstable its contents (average life span of a URL = 44 days [Kahle, 1997]).

8. A word about workload No research has been done on the time required to maintain a subject guide. The literature is unanimous in pointing out the effect of creating/ maintaining guides on workload.

9. Another workload issue New issue associated with LibGuides Ease of creation encourages creation of LibGuides, but adds to workload because of necessary maintenance.