Creating a Research Guide
The Giovale Library staff develop and maintain research guides for many topics and specific courses
taught at Westminster College. The research guides are developed by means of a collaborative process
between the faculty and the library staff. It takes, on average, three to four weeks to develop a research
guide and have the material published online for users.
Ongoing maintenance of the research guides is completed each semeseter. The links to websites and
databases are reviewed to ensure they are still available and accurate. At any time, faculty members
are invited and encouraged, to submit changes or additions to the subject guides they use.
Research Guide Development Process
- Contact the librarian who is responsible for your area
of interest to setup an appointment to discuss the research guide you would like developed.
- When meeting with the librarian, the faculty member and librarian will discuss resources which
will be included in the research guide, such as books, databases, and websites.
- After the list of resources are identified which are to be included in the research guide, the
library web staff will contact you to see if there are any special graphics, photos, or other considerations
to take into account for the design of the research guide before building a preview of the guide for you to review.
- Once you have had time to look at the preview of the research guide online, changes and revisions can
be made in conjuction with the library web staff to make sure the final guide is satisfactory and meets the
needs you had in mind when developing the guide.
- After all revisions have been made to the research guide the library web staff will publish the
research guide online for users.
