Make & Share: GotS Directory

Today I found myself searching to see what other libraries have done for their Guide on the Side (GotS)* tutorials on the discovery search tool called Summon. It occurred to me that I really need to make a list of libraries I find that use the tool because I’ve done this same kind of search at least three times before. Then I thought that this would be a great opportunity for me to share my work and potentially help other people quickly find GotS tutorials for inspiration. The last time I did this kind of search, I saved links to several libraries’ GotS pages into my Diigo. I thought about bookmarking all of the GotS pages I could find there but ultimately decided I wanted to make a page on my site for it (you know, directing traffic to my other work, but also so I could organize them in alphabetical order and include other content on the page). I then spent several hours doing the most comprehensive web searches I could manage, linking what I found on my page. Along the way I found hits that were about GotS rather than the tutorials themselves. I decided to add at bibliography of those as well. Here is what I created.

Guide on the Side

I struggled with how to categorize this assignment – it’s part Get Productive (because having the directory keeps me from doing a new search each time I am looking to make a new tutorial), part Make and Share (because I created something), and part Wing It (because it doesn’t quite fit elsewhere and includes an element of sharing/cc licensing a product that I didn’t need to share). Ultimately, I decided to go with a Make and Share. Even though it is strictly text, it is a linked list and doesn’t require much reading.

* Guide on the Side is a tutorial creation tool for libraries that allows students to work their way through online content in a guided fashion in real time. It is generally used to teach people how to effectively search online databases, but it can be used to guide people through any web site. Here is an example.

One Reply to “Make & Share: GotS Directory”

  1. Feel free to come up with a new category for your assignments! ProMakeWing?

    You know this, but for the sake of other #Nousioneers, consider the added value of what you’ve done by publishing this: not just a productivity increase for yourself, but a resource for others…and that others can contribute to or improve (best case). One of my mantras, stolen from a friend, is to adopt a posture of openness. Too many have the opposite default: not to share openly except in special circumstances. I try to make it the other way around. But it does take some confidence, sometimes an investment of some extra time (and being technologically enablecd to do so in the first place).

    I can’t believe I’ve never seen the AZ Guide on the Side software in action before. I’d think this could be extremely useful to all kinds of people outside of the library application, filling a bit of niche between static tutorials and video based screencasts. I have put it on my list to try installing the software on one of my sites…the requirements, though rather geeky, don’t look too bad.

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