What are library guides?

There are two types of library guides:

  1. Subject guides: these are web pages that have been curated by your subject librarian; they show databases, ebooks, and other resources that the librarian has identified as useful for your discipline.

  2. Course guides: these are web pages that have been created by your subject librarian for a specific course.

Have suggestions on how to improve the subject guide for your department? Want a librarian to create a course guide for you? Contact your librarian!

How can I include a library guide in my Blackboard course?

Our resource guides are actually in your Blackboard course by default! If you click Library Resources in your course menu, it will take you to the subject guide for your discipline, or a course guide for that specific course. If you'd like a course guide for your class, please contact your librarian team.

There are also some other ways you can share these guides in your course - see the options below for instructions!

Find and copy the URL for the guide you'd like to include in Blackboard. We recommend you use the URL listed at the bottom of the page - not the URL in the address bar:

Just add the link to your Blackboard course like you would any other link!

You might be wondering why you'd use method #3. This method allows you a little bit more freedom in what content you're sharing. You don't have to share everything that is in a guide, and you have more control about where you put it in your course than you do with method #1.

  1. Choose the module you'd like to add the library guide to, and click Build Content.

  2. Click Research Guides (under the Mashups heading).

    Screenshot of Blackboard 'build content' contextual menu

  3. Enter whatever you'd like in the Name field, and click Submit.

    Screenshot of Blackboard's create item screen

  4. This will take you back to the module edit screen - scroll down until you see the newly created item, and click on it:

    Screenshot of newly created item in Blackboard

  5. You will see a dropdown menu with one option; select it.

    Screenshot of LibGuides content selection screen

  6. This should produce another dropdown menu, this one with several options:

    Screenshot of the LibGuides manual LTI options in Blackboard

    Please do not use the A-Z Databases options; the library doesn't use this tool to manage our databases, so you won't get any data for some of these options.

    Here's a quick rundown of the various options under Guide & Guide Content. The * Education Research Guide is the full guide we're looking at in the diagram below. 

    Screenshot of a LibGuide with various parts diagrammed

  7. Let's say you decide you want to use the Penfield Library Catalog box, which you can see in our screenshot. You would select Content Box from the dropdown menu.

  8. This will create another dropdown menu; select the guide title. (In our example, I would select * Education Research Guide.)

  9. For guide page, I'd select Books

  10. Then, I'd select my box title - Penfield Library Catalog - and click Embed Content.

    Screenshot of LibGuides LTI - manual option - in Blackboard

Here's a quick (15 sec.) screencast to show you what it looks like in Blackboard:

(If you're having trouble viewing the video, try going directly to Screencast to view it.)