Day 1 - Beyond the Library: Building a Digital Exhibit with LibGuides CMS

Springy_Will

Session information: https://training.springshare.com/springycamp/2023/digital-exhibit-with-libguides-cms

In Spring 2023, two USC Upstate faculty librarians collaborated with teaching faculty and a community partner to create the Women & WWII Digital Exhibit: The Letters of Margaret Payne. Using LibGuides CMS as the public platform, students transcribed 1940s handwritten letters and researched content to provide context and bring the subjects to life. LibGuides' flexibility allowed the librarians to maintain administrative control while granting students the freedom to add content to their individual pages. The presentation will cover design decisions, administrative aspects, and the use of various boxes and navigation aids. It will also discuss the project's impact on students' hard and soft skills, share takeaways, and outline plans for future iterations of Digital Exhibits.

Have any questions for Ann Merryman and Laura Karas?

Post them here! 💬

Springy_Meg

Jenny was curious: How hard was it for students to read script?

amerryman

Hi! It was harder for some students to read script than others, based largely on whether they had been taught cursive in school but also whether they were part of the original cohort of students from Internship 499 in the fall of '22. Those students had developed some skills, but overall it's a bit of a learning curve even for someone who can read cursive. The handwriting varied throughout the collection, so whenever the students had issues, they could always come to me, Laura, and the professor with questions. We did have to do a fair amount of proofreading on all the transcriptions! :)

emsommers

That was a wonderful presentation! I was wondering if either of you have used LibGuides for a digital exhibit focusing on library/archive materials? If so, did the process differ from this one? As an MLIS student I worked on digital exhibits but it didn't occur to me to use LibGuides to create and present the work. Thanks for your insight!

amartel

Our archivist uses Omeka.net for student-created exhibits. We do not have the ability to host Omeka locally and need to pay for it to be hosted.

In the age of budgetary reductions, are there any reasons why Omeka would be preferred over LibGuides for student-led archival exhibits? Since LibGuides uses Dublin Core like Omeka, I'm wondering if there's something that I, a non-archivist and LibGuides enthusiast, am missing!

Thanks!
Alli

amerryman

EMSOMMERS: This is the first Digital Exhibit I've done using LibGuides, and our archives is really new so we don't have a depth of materials / collections that would lend themselves to a robust digital exhibit. This is why, when I heard about the community partnership between one of our faculty and the Piedmont Historical Preservation Society, I knew this would be a great opportunity to create a digital exhibit and give students the opportunity to link a project on their resumes. However, I don't think that the process itself would be all that different for one of my own collections, but the content design / choices definitely would change based on what I was using. Hope this helps! ~ Ann

amerryman

Hi Alli! I'm a Dual-Role, Solo Archivist at my institution…I have one full-time, non-degreed staff member, and just got my very first student worker in January 2023 (he was also taking HIST 391 at the same time). Unfortunately, we don't have the budget nor do I have the time or technical expertise to undertake learning Omeka since I'm also part of the Research Librarian team, so I'm not sure I can answer your question. I've approached my Archivist role from the beginning as focusing on doing what I can with what I have on hand, so for me LibGuides was a no-brainer, particularly once I saw what my colleague at another institution had done with the platform. Does that answer any part of your question? :) ~ Ann

amartel

Hi @amerryman! That makes sense. Our Archivist is also solo, unfortunately without the benefit of a staff member, and relies heavily on his student assistants. Given the size of our archive and how relatively infrequently he creates exhibits, I'm going to float this as an idea by him. He may shoot it down given time constraints anyway. 😅

Thanks so much!
~Alli

Springy_Meg

I audibly gasped when you started showing off the exhibit. 🤩 Thanks so much for sharing, @amerryman and @Laura_Karas!

Laura_Karas

We are excited to show it off! we had fun creating it and thinking of where it will go next!!