SpringyCamp 2020: Migrating to LibGuides and LibCal

• Worked as long as possible using City’s CMS
• We outgrew what the City’s CMS could provide
• Couldn’t customize library page master template
• Limit on how LibCal could interact on site
• Too cumbersome to update
• Needed better responsive design for mobile devices.

LibGuides allows real-time edits which make it easy and hassle-free when it comes to updating our site promptly. Delay edits have always been a problem in the past as the previous CMS took on average 2-3 minutes to load per page. This meant that updating various parts of the library page would be on average about an hour to a 1 1/2 hour to complete.

What is excellent with LibGuides and LibCal is the seamless integration between the two products. Before going live with Springshare, we used the LibCal calendar widget on the city library page. It works, but we had to customize the layout to get the page widget to show the full list of events.

The City's calendar system allows us to add events to the library. Still, it didn't give us the flexibility to add registration and good user experience for our patrons.

We first piloted LibCal in the summer of 2019 during the Summer Reading Program, while it was a small challenge to train staff in a short turn around time, it was a success in many ways.