Peer Review

LibGuides: Library Tutorials Best Practices: Creating Tutorials: Best Practices

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: May 18, 2026 by Library and Information Services

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

This LibGuide provides information and further resources on producing library tutorials. Topics include screen casting, production tools, editing, badges, and captioning. Examples of library tutorials and marketing practices are also provided.

Type of Material:

Collection

Recommended Uses:

Reference or how to guide

Technical Requirements:

Website. Video/audio included.

Tested in Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Users will find best practices to follow when creating library tutorials.
Users will find different tools to use in creating library tutorials.
Users will find examples of library tutorials and marketing practices to follow in their own practices.

Target Student Population:

Professional, Graduate School

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

No prerequisite knowledge. Discusses different tools to create library tutorials, so general computer knowledge is useful.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

Creating tutorials is a popular topic in the library science field. The guide points to relevant resources that can be used by anyone wanting to create tutorials, particularly in a library setting.

Concerns:

The LibGuide’s introduction clearly states that the guide was initially created for internal uses. The information and its organization reflects the initial internal, informal nature. Therefore, it does not seem to be a complete demonstrate of the concept. The amount of information varies in each section. The organization of the sections is not logical. Some of the descriptions of the links is written in first-person rather than short, concise, and in third-person.
It seems like the pages were made by different people. Some descriptions are short, others are more conversational. Instructions are written in different voices.
Based on the most recently updated date, some of the information would benefit from a refresh to be more current.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

The site contains a variety of resources, some resources are text others are videos that cover many aspects of creating online tutorials.

Concerns:

The organization of the sections do not introduce the concepts in a logical order, because they mix broad categories and specific tools. For example, the section “Screen Casting” describes the tool Jing. However, there is also a whole section on Jing.
The information within the sections is not continuous. They are treated as individual topics. Therefore, the guide does not build on concepts or demonstrate relationships between concepts.
The information would benefit from an update because other tools and functionalities are available.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

The guide is easy to navigate and the first page gives an overview of the guide.

Concerns:

The overall design of the site is hard to read. The number of tabs could probably be reduced.
The link in the description (http://ncwc.libguides.com/videobestpractices) does not work.
Individual sections vary in design (e.g. two-column, three-column, etc.) It would be nice if the sections were consistently in a one or two column design, which would make it easier to read.
Embedded YouTube videos are tiny in the two to three column layout.
Some of links require a login to the college’s databases.
WAVE (http://wave.webaim.org/) detected some accessibility errors.

Other Issues and Comments:: Developed as an internal guide for library staff, it reflects design inconsistencies and other issues that are not unexpected in a composite work that has been added to over time by different people. To make this resource usable to others external to this individual library, developing a stronger organizational scheme and a consistent style would be important.
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