DOI: 10.5061/dryad.prr4xgxvk
title: Build better LibGuides: A dataset of Political Science, Public Affairs, and International Studies LibGuides

description: The dataset that accompanies the "Build Better LibGuides"
 chapter of Teaching Information Literacy in Political Science, Public
 Affairs, and International Studies. This dataset was created to compare
 current practices in Political Science, Public Affairs, and International
 Studies (PSPAIS) LibGuides with recommended best practices using a sample
 that represents a variety of academic institutions. Members of the ACRL
 Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section (PPIRS) were
 identified as the librarians most likely to be actively engaged with these
 specific subjects, so the dataset was scoped by identifying the
 institutions associated with the most active PPIRS members and then
 locating the LibGuides in these and related disciplines. The resulting
 dataset includes 101 guides at 46 institutions, for a total of 887
 LibGuide tabs.
description: This dataset was created to compare current practices in
 Political Science, Public Affairs, and International Studies (PSPAIS)
 LibGuides with recommended best practices using a sample that represents a
 variety of academic institutions. Members of the ACRL Politics, Policy,
 and International Relations Section (PPIRS) were identified as the
 librarians most likely to be actively engaged with these specific
 subjects, so the dataset was scoped by identifying the institutions
 associated with the most active PPIRS members and then locating the
 LibGuides in these and related disciplines. Specifically, a student
 assistant collected the names and institutional affiliations of each
 member serving on a PPIRS committee as of July 1, 2021, 2022, and 2023.
 The student then removed the individual librarian names from the list and
 located the links to the Political Science or Government; Public Policy,
 Public Affairs, or Public Administration; and International Studies or
 International Relations LibGuides at each institution. The chapter author
 then confirmed and, in a few cases, added to the student's work and
 copied and pasted the tab names from each guide (which conveniently were
 also hyperlinked) into a Google Sheet. The resulting dataset included 101
 guides at 46 institutions, for a total of 887 LibGuide tabs. A Google Apps
 script was used to extract the hyperlinks from the collected tab names and
 then a Python script was used to scrape the names of links included on
 each of the tabs. LibGuides from two institutions returned errors during
 the link name scraping process and were excluded in this part of the
 analysis.
description: # Build Better LibGuides: A Dataset of Political Science, Public Affairs,
 and International Studies LibGuides
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.prr4xgxvk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.prr4xgxvk) This dataset was created to compare current practices in Political Science, Public Affairs, and International Studies (PSPAIS) LibGuides with recommended best practices using a sample that represents a variety of academic institutions. Members of the ACRL Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section (PPIRS) were identified as the librarians most likely to be actively engaged with these specific subjects, so the dataset was scoped by identifying the institutions associated with the most active PPIRS members and then locating the LibGuides in these and related disciplines. Specifically, a student assistant collected the names and institutional affiliations of each member serving on a PPIRS committee as of July 1, 2021, 2022, and 2023. The student then removed the individual librarian names from the list and located the links to the Political Science or Government; Public Policy, Public Affairs, or Public Administration; and International Studies or International Relations LibGuides at each institution. The chapter author then confirmed and, in a few cases, added to the student's work and copied and pasted the tab names from each guide (which conveniently were also hyperlinked) into a Google Sheet. The resulting dataset included 101 guides at 46 institutions, for a total of 887 LibGuide tabs. A Google Apps script was used to extract the hyperlinks from the collected tab names and then a Python script was used to scrape the names of links included on each of the tabs. LibGuides from two institutions returned errors during the link name scraping process and were excluded in this part of the analysis. ## Description of the data and file structure TILPSPAIS_PoliSci_Libguides.xlsx -  a multisheet Microsoft Excel file with the following tabs: Links; Descriptive Stats; Average Accessibility Scores - ; Average Number of Tabs - Pivot; List of tabs; Count of tabs - Pivot table; Tab names + standardized; Count of tab categories - Pivot; URLs; Scraped link text; Count of scraped links - Pivot; Scraping blocked links libguides_no_errors.csv - the list of LibGuides tab urls extracted from the Excel file, with the two institutions that were unavailable for scraping removed. all_links_text.csv - the list of link names included on LibGuides tab, the output of the Python script ## Code/Software Scrape_list_of_websites.ipynb - Python script to scrape the link names [//a/text()] from each LibGuide tab