1 The Next Generation Research Guide: LibGuides Training and Marketing at SFSU

In Spring 2007, a group of 5 San Francisco State University librarians undertook a project to revolutionize more than 90 academic research guides. Realizing that the traditional static pathfinder was growing less and less relevant to younger, more Googlecentric users, we decided to bring these guides into the modern Web 2.0 age. Using Springshare’s LibGuides content management system as well as some good old fashioned training, support and cheerleading, we successfully accomplished our goal. In this paper, we’ll discuss how we shepherded both our research guides and our librarian authors into the LibGuides platform, describe the training we offered and the set of best practices we developed. We will also discuss the methods and findings of our capstone research project to publicize our LibGuides using no-cost social media marketing techniques. San Francisco State University (SFSU) has a user population of approximately 27,000 students, and the J. Paul Leonard Library maintains a strong online presence in support of both education and research. Instruction librarians provide course integrated seminars in computer labs (by request) for undergraduate and graduate courses. Like many academic libraries, SFS