progress?

i've been browsing libguides from different institutions across the country and have about 3 pages of notes so far of things i'm considering adding to my libguide. i interviewed mike (at courant) and asked carol some questions too. mike was really helpful. it wasn't too long ago when he got his master's here at courant so he told me about the different resources he used. carol focused my attention on the purpose and audience of this guide as i move forward with it.

so far, it's a long and arduous process. there are so many ways i can tackle this one. math has many facets and so many ways to approach creating a guide. i think when i've come to a point where all the math libguides are essentially repeating, i'll look at our bobst guides from other subject areas and see what other subject librarians have done.

here are some guides i've looked at so far:

• www.camosun.ca.libguides.com/math
• easternct.libguides.com/math
• libguides.dartmouth.edu/math
• libguides.matcmadison.edu/content.php?pid=21517
• libguides.gatewaycc.edu/math
• libguides.olin.edu/math
• libguides.umhb.edu/math

and i've got some ideas of my own. my problem now is trying to distinguish between a guide more suited for grad students vs a guide for undergrads. which is my target audience? and what do i want them to get out of using this guide? that'll determine the kind of content i want to include.

another thing, how much content is too much content? there are tons of resources out there for math, but what makes it just a guide?

EDIT1: just remembered the library's wiki page and found the page for libguides at nyu. so i'm going to read that and go from there.

EDIT2: 12/20/09
spent another hour or so reviewing the wiki page and studying the NYU template for a guide. it seems simple enough. the problem is still content. i'm thinking of including a "fun math" section. math should be fun! (even tho that's not perceived as being purely academic...) i'm finding more and more of my content is just links to online resources. i wonder how much physical material i should reference...

EDIT3: 12/22/09
spent about 3 hours actually creating a guide! i'm still working on adding the links for the bare bones of the guide. next, i have to add descriptions to each link, explaining why i think its better than all other links out there (ok, there's a bit of exaggeration there). here's the link to it if you want to check on my progress every once in a while...

EDIT4: 12/26/09
spent a few hours today working on the libguide some more. i figured out how to get the wolfram alpha box to show up (finally!). also added short descriptions to most of the links. added new boxes and made more tabs.

EDIT5: 12/27/09
added content to books/articles/other resources pages. almost done?

EDIT6: 12/28/09
ok, so not quite done yet. still have two parts that need filling in: math associations under math fun and databases under finding articles.

EDIT7: 12/29/09
filled in the section for associations. moved some boxes around on each of the tabs. still have to do the databases section. and then i'll be done!!

EDIT8: 01/01/10
doneeeeeeeee (i think)