LibGuides Author Manual
Instructions, guidelines, and best practices for creating and maintaining LibGuides at Rutgers University Libraries.
Policies & Editorial Guidelines
The following policies and editorial guidelines have been endorsed by the LibGuides Working Group in order to ensure best practices among LibGuides authors and provide a positive and consistent user experience across the platform.
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Accounts
- Author accounts are reserved for Rutgers University Libraries' faculty and staff. Authors interested in granting editorial access to research assistants, interns, instructors, or other collaborators may create editor-level accounts for them by appointing them as Guide Editors. Remember to remove editors from your guides once your collaboration has ended.
- To prevent unauthorized access to your account, create a strong, secure password and do not share it with others.
Scope
- In order to minimize duplication and overlap with the RUL website, LibGuide authors should determine which platform is the best vehicle for the delivery of their content. The following types of content have been approved by the LibGuides Working Group. If you need help determining whether your content is appropriate for LibGuides, contact the system administrator.
- Subject Guides
Information resources for research in a specific subject or discipline - Course Guides
Information resources for course-related research - How To Guides
Information about locating materials in particular formats, using specific databases or research tools, etc. - Staff Guides
Internal information for staff training, committee work, project management, etc.
Note: staff guides containing sensitive information should be password protected.
Title
- All guide titles should be concise, consistent, and clearly communicate the purpose of the guide to the user.
- Subject guide titles should include only the name of the subject or discipline they represent.
- Examples: Chemistry as opposed to Chemistry Research Guide; Psychology as opposed to Information Resources in Psychology
- Course guide titles should include the course title followed in parentheses by the course number. Course numbers and titles can be found in the Rutgers University Schedule of Classes.
- Examples: Introduction to Literature (01:351:201) ; Ethics in Business (29:522:334); Psychology of Childhood (50:830:226)
- Use title case for page and box titles (i.e., "Finding Books" not "FINDING BOOKS")
URL
- All guides and pages should have concise, user-friendly URLs that are easy to remember and communicate.
- Example: http://libguides.rutgers.edu/business NOT http://libguides.rutgers.edu/content.php?pid=149806
Profile
- A profile box should appear on the entry page of every subject guide. The profile provides information about the guide author and lets users know who to contact with questions.
- Profile boxes should appear in the top of the right column (i.e., the default location) so users always know where to find this information.
- Profile images should be no larger than 150 x 200px. Larger images take up more space and detract from guide content.
- To avoid clutter, keep profile boxes to a minimum. If you have more than 2 people collaborating on a guide, consider using a single, standard box that includes contact information for the entire group.
- For consistency, your contact information should appear exactly as it does in the RUL Faculty & Staff Directory.
- Subjects are assigned based on librarian subject specialties. To report any errors, contact the system administrator.
Content
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All content should be proofread for errors and edited for optimum readability.
Tips on Writing for the Web Keep it short - Be concise; get to the point
- Break up information into scannable "chunks"
- Use short words/sentences and bulleted lists
Keep it simple - Include only 1-2 ideas per short paragraph
- Use plain language
- Avoid technical jargon and acronyms
Keep it focused - Put the most important content first
- Use meaningful page titles and headings
- Use bold, italics, and other visual cues to emphasize key ideas (avoid capitalization)
Layout
- Use tabs to organize content according to key themes with short, familiar labels (e.g., finding books, finding articles, citing sources, etc.).
- Keep tab titles short (3 words or less) and avoid creating multiple rows of tabs.
- Group related content by organizing it hierarchically into sub-pages.
- Organize boxes within your pages in order of importance, keeping the most important information near the top or "above the fold".
- Resize columns in order to suit your content and maximize your use of the page.
Style
- Ensure that font size, style, and formatting is consistent throughout your guide.
- Use rich text Headings as indicators for sections and sub-sections in your guide (not only for organizational structure but also to maximize readability for for screen readers)
- Don't use text color to convey meaning or importance. Colorblind users and screen readers may not detect color changes.
- Avoid using non-HTML content that may not be accessible, like PDF or PowerPoint documents.
- Add caption and/or provide transcripts for media.
- In order to ensure a consistent look and feel, avoid using custom styles and coding. If you have special needs that require custom coding, contact the system administrator.
- Copying and pasting content from other sources (such as Word documents) may introduce extraneous code that can create style inconsistencies within your guide or make your content display in unexpected ways. When pasting content from other sources, be sure to remove all formatting by using the Paste From Word or Paste as Plain Text button.
Links
- Use Links rather than Rich Text/HTML to create links to resources because they allow you to:
- Easily enter and edit information such as title, URL, and description
- Make these links available for reuse throughout the system
- Obtain clickthrough statistics to assess usage
- Easily identify and fix broken links using link checker reports (Note: links created with Rich Text/HTML cannot be checked)
- When creating links, use meaningful keywords (e.g., "search QuickSearch") rather than non-descriptive text (e.g., "click here to search QuickSearch")
- Use the following guidelines when linking to library resources:
| QuickSearch | Use the following friendly URLs when linking to pages in QuickSearch. Use record permalinks (e.g., http://bit.ly/2HN7YGL) when linking to individual item records. There is no need to add the proxy prefix when linking to any content within QuickSearch.
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| Databases | Do not link directly to subscription databases. Instead, link to the database description page on the RUL website. This avoids the need to include a proxy prefix or worry about vendor changes to the URL. Example: Academic Search Premier | ||||||||||||||||
| Full Text Articles | Use the permalink or DOI included the database record. Unless the link is already proxied by the vendor (for example, EBSCO does this), you must add the proxy to your link in order to ensure access for off-campus users. |
Images
- Use images to supplement textual information, not replace it. Excessive use of images increases page load and makes your guide less accessible to mobile devices and screen readers.
- Make sure your image is the appropriate size (max 5MB) and format (PG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and ICO). For technical guidance on creating images for the web, see this article on image optimization.
- Use alt text so that your image can be read and interpreted by screen readers and search engines.
- Keep your image library organized with useful folder and file names to make your images easier to find.
- Use of images must comply with all applicable copyright restrictions.
Accessibility
Creating accessible content makes your guide more usable for everyone. Below are some tips and guidelines for making your guides more accessible.
- Best Practices for Building Guides & Accessibility Tips
- LibGuides Design: Accessibility Guidelines
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
Maintenance
- Plan to review and update your guides at least once per semester. New resources are added to and removed from the library's collection all the time and authors should take care to ensure that their guides always reflect the best and most current resources available.
- Review Link Checker reports at least once per semester. Link Checker provides weekly reports of broken links in your guides and can be accessed from the dashboard menu under Tools. Link Checker only reports on links that have been created using link assets. It does not include any links you may have created using Rich Text/HTML boxes. These links need to be checked manually.
- All authors should review usage statistics for their guides at least once per year. Authors may want to consider retiring, revising, or obtaining user feedback on guides with particularly low usage.
- In order to ensure your guides are up-to-date, consider scheduling LibGuides maintenance tasks in your calendar.
Weeding
Succession
- Departing librarians should contact the system administrator approximately one month before their date of departure and notify them which of their guides are to be transferred or deleted.
- The ownership of any subject guides will be transferred to an interim guide owner (as determined by the AUL-RIS) until there is a permanent replacement hire.
- The ownership of any other guides (such as course guides) will be transferred upon mutual agreement between the guide's current and proposed new owner.
- Any remaining guides will be deleted after the author's last day of employment.
- Once all guides have been transferred or deleted, the author's account will be deleted.