Review: LibPaths

Digital curation, the act of finding, organising, and providing access to a range of digital resources on a selected topic, is a large part of my role in the school library. Whether I am curating resources on AI tools for educators, ancient Egypt or Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it’s handy to have one platform to organise and store these resources. When talking about my tasks around digital curation, I’m often asked what platforms or tools I use. And while there are many available, from free and paid to generic and library-centric, I love that the platform I use is designed for school libraries and integrates seamlessly with my library catalogue system. So here’s a quick rundown and review of Concord LibPaths and how I use it to curate digital information in my school library.

LibPaths

Concord LibPaths is a digital platform designed for use in the school library. It is a standalone product, so can be used with any school library management and catalogue system. It enables you to create and customise information pages called portals. Being able to create these pages enables me to group and provide access to relevant information all in one location. I have over 260 portals, ranging from pages about our library space and reading recommendations to resource pages on subject specific units of work.

Features and Function

Curated Information Pages

Each curated page in LibPaths is called a portal and consists of as many portlets, sections on the page, that you want to add. Dragging and dropping the portlets enables you to arrange the information in ways most helpful to students and you can choose from a variety of one, two and three column layouts for the overall design.

User-Friendly Interface

Designed with both librarians and students in mind, the interface is intuitive and accessible. There are a range of portlet types available, including media players and book carousels, but the one I use most often is the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Basically, a web text editor, in which you can format text and add links and embed videos and images. Drag-and-drop tools for arranging the portlets, column layout options, portal design settings, banners, and automatic menus in three locations are additional features that make creating these pages super easy and make them look professional and appealing to students. When I first started using LibPaths, my pages looked pretty basic, but even with limited experience I could put together an accessible and appealing page. Now I can use the web text source option to improve my layouts, offering flexibility to those with more web design experience.

Pre-designed templates

The LibPaths Portal Hub offers a large range of pre-designed portals on a range of topics. These have been curated and designed by a teacher librarian, so you know the information is relevant and can be used immediately in your library setting or customised as you see fit. It’s also a great way to learn some amazing tips and tricks on how to really level up your layouts and designs of the page.

Profile targeted display

The best feature of LibPaths, and probably the one that sets it apart from other digital curation platforms, is the ability to target and display pages to only the relevant student and staff profiles. Let me give you an example. My Year 7 students can only see and access the pages relevant to them. The junior school staff see a different landing page from the secondary school staff and my Year 12 students only see the year 12 content pages, when they need them. This all works on a system where you can allocate a portal to a cohort or group. So, my Year 6 Digital Skills portal is only allocated to the Year 6 group in the system, while my Secondary Library Reading Recommendation page is allocated to all Year 7 to 12 students. I can create as many groups and portals as I need, specifically targeting pages to users. This dramatically reduces the need to locate the pages (which can be really off-putting for students who won’t event click on a link in Google anymore). Instead of 4-6 clicks navigating a complex menu system to find the pages for them, I simply ask my students or staff to login and automatically they can see the pages they need. Users access each page from a tab across the top of the landing page

I can also target the timing of my portals. So, my Year 9 Romeo and Juliet portal is only visible during Term 3 when the students are studying that topic. It then sits in my portal library waiting for me to schedule it to turn back on when needed. The scheduling tool allows me to do this automatically throughout the year. This reduces the number of portals a student or staff member can see at any one time and therefore removes any chance the students (or teachers!) are overwhelmed from the number of portals available to them. This provides them only the information they need, when they need it.

Teacher editors

It’s not just library staff who can curate and create these pages. The LibPaths system enables you to give editing power to a specific portal to any teacher or staff member, which means you can collaborate on creating these pages, saving lots of time. The ease of creating a LibPath portal means I can confidently ask any teachers to collaborate.

Links

While I usually direct students and staff to access their pages from the landing page where they find the relevant portal tab, you can provide them with a direct link to each portal. This teachers sometimes embed into the OneNote, teaching resources or learning management system for students to find and use. The LibPaths system also enables you to create anonymous links. This means someone not logged into the system, a family member or community member, can access a portal via that link. This is helpful for when I create pages targeted towards family and community members, such as a welcome to the library page for new Year 7 families, which I share via QR codes on bookmarks.

Statistics

Thanks to integration with Google Analytics, I can see how often my LibPaths are accessed. Over the past few years, use of our LibPaths has skyrocketed and I can see when and how the students and staff are using them. Unless the students are accessing them via a direct link, I can’t tell which page is getting the most views, but I can see overall use, which is great data to share with leadership.

Benefits

The benefits of creating these pages is that all students have access to the resources through one platform. They don’t have to navigate multiple platforms for different subjects. As it’s the Library providing these resources increases equality, as all students have access and not just the students whose teacher provides them a link or bank of resources. Easy of access is key. I know my students will switch off if they have to think too hard, look too deeply or make multiple clicks to get to the page I need them to be on and I witness how simple it is for students to be able to find the pages I create for them when using LibPaths. The portlets and portal menu then help them navigate to the information they need on the page.

The design features enables me to make these pages accessible, and change fonts, font size and colour and background colour to make the pages readable for all students. The pages, using the three column system, also automatically resize for any device, including mobile devices.

While some educators argue that we need to teach students how to find their resources and sources of information instead of providing it to them by curating it into pages, I know that my pages do both. They provide information and examples of good sources, modelling good practice. Because I can add as much information and text and images to the pages as I want, I can provide details and instruction, even instructional videos, on these pages. They are not just a page of links, as some platforms are, but can be used to create step-by-step instructional guides on how to research, search, reference or any other skill. I have LibPath portals that I have used to create short courses on information literacy skills and pages on how to use the Library’s podcasting system. The sky is the limit to what I can create and curate.

Implementation and Usability

LibPaths is simple to get using. Once installed, you add your users, create groups and then start creating your pages. We started with just a few pages and now have over 260 pages for different purposes and groups. These are retained for use each year, saving so much time by not having to rebuild, simply just refresh and update.

LibPaths can be used with any library catalogue system (or no system), as it is a standalone product.

Final thoughts

Having used a wide variety of curation platforms, from LibGuides and Pinterest to Wakelet and Pearltrees, LibPaths is easily my favourite. Its ease of use and interface is great but it’s how easy it is for my students find the information they need that really sets this platform apart.

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