Libguides are an extremely valuable, though often under-utilised method for libraries to convey information to their users. I have limited experience of using libguides myself; the library at TCD, where I did my undergrad, has only one libguide so far, so I was largely unaware of their existence until I arrived at UCD.
Since then I have used several of the library’s guides, including the bibliometrics guide which I have found very helpful in the past. The guide breaks down quite a complex topic into short, coherent and clear sections and provides a great variety of examples and external resources. The guide is fairly text-heavy which can make it challenging to read in full, but the nature of the topic makes that somewhat unavoidable. The use of separate text boxes and visuals wherever possible is a great help in retaining the reader’s interest. I’ve found the explanation of the h-index included in this guide particularly helpful in the past as several other definitions I’ve read have been very unclear and confusing, whereas this one sums it up very succinctly. If I were developing this libguide, I would give more prominence to the training provided by the library. This information is left to the end of the guide and is easily skipped over or ignored. I would include some smaller reference to training in the introduction to ensure any interested researcher is aware of the resource, and to incorporate an element of outreach in the guide.
The Bibliometrics guide may be text-heavy in parts, but it is nothing in comparison to the libguide for Research Repository UCD. The topic is complex and the guide is aimed at advanced researchers, so the density of the information is necessary, but it is difficult to read nonetheless. On some of the pages (Eligibility, Third-Party Services, and others) the text is broken up into a number of very small text boxes, which, due to the high contrast of the colour scheme, is overwhelming and difficult to read. If I were to change anything about this guide, I would make the pages more uniform in terms of text box sizes and content length. I would also change the border colour to a lighter blue as the strong contrast gives the page a slightly dated look and can be difficult to read. I would also increase the font size slightly to make it more easily legible and accessible. The content itself is very thorough and would satisfy any level of curiosity about the subject. I would, however, aim to include more images or graphs to break up the text, though this would be challenging given the subject.
Overall, the content of these two libguides is excellent; they give thorough and comprehensive introductions to their subjects which are well tailored to their audience. The only obvious issues are aesthetic and easily rectifiable, though important if the guides are to have their intended impact.
Sense of Shelf 
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