Guidelines

General:

Follow existing web guidelines whenever possible, including use of color and recommended fonts.

You can use LibGuides to create any sort of research guide: publication types, subject pages, databases cheatsheets, course pages, etc.

Publication type, subject page, course page

Setting up your profile:

Label the profile box (and all boxes!) wisely:

• My Profile
• Ask Us
• Subject Specialist
• Dewey Library (or other library name)
• Questions?

http://libguides.mit.edu/21W-732-01

Use your Kerberos ID for your profile shortcut.

http://libguides.mit.edu/profile/darcy

Only include your name in the "Display Name" field.

We strongly encourage you to add your photo to your profile. Usability tests showed they made it VERY easy to see the contact info and made the profiles stand out. Staff photo use guidelines should be followed.  No avatars!  Hide the photo box on each guide, if you don't use a picture. 

http://libguides.mit.edu/compsci

Use "friendly" URLs (shortcut URLs) for all pages.

Adding chat contact info is optional.  People are welcome to embed Meebo boxes, but color should match with our color scheme (black, meebo, mac, meebome).

http://libguides.mit.edu/theater

Contact information should always display in top right.  You can delete the default profile box, as long as you add a new box with contact info. 

http://libguides.mit.edu/companies

If you would like to make a full staff profile page (listed here ), submit info and photo to Darcy or Remlee.  To link to your profile page from your profile box:

• After you log-in, click on “Customize Your Profile,” then “Additional Fields.”
• In the “More Info” box, paste this code: <a href="InsertFullURLHere!!">More about me</a> (Enter the link to your own profile between the quotation marks, as copied from your full profile page.
• After you’re done, make sure it shows up in your published guides. You may have to go to your guides and tweak the info on that profile box.
• If you have questions about this, or if you’re uncomfortable adding the code, ask for Marion’s help.

Page layout:

The fewer boxes, the better!  Keep it simple.  No set limit to number of boxes allowed on page, but if it looks cluttered or if scrolling is excessive, consider reorganizing or using Dreamweaver.

1, 2, and 3 column layouts are all ok to use use.  

http://libguides.mit.edu/humgeneral (2 column)
http://libguides.mit.edu/materials (3 column)

Set a maximum of 5 or 6 tabs per page.  Subtabs may be used as a last resort, but should be kept as simple as possible and labeled wisely.  Make sure the tab name and the page name match.  Don't link tabs to URLs outside of your guide, since the tabs are meant for navigating within your guide. 

http://libguides.mit.edu/circ

If you use tabs, make sure to link to the tabs somewhere on the main page.  Users don't always see tabs, so providing alternate navigation helps.  Note: When you link to the tab, don't just copy the link to the tab in edit or preview mode.  You can either copy the tab's URL on a live page, or you can copy tab's URL in edit mode, and delete the "ae" from the URL. 
Example:
link for a tab you'd see in live mode: http://libguides.mit.edu/content.php?pid=18306&sid=126406
link for a tab you'd see in edit mode: http://libguides.mit.edu/aecontent.php?pid=18306&sid=126406
(You'd want to delete the "ae" before the "content.php" in the link, so that the URL is correct.)

http://libguides.mit.edu/circ

When given an option, have links open in a new tab/window.

Choose to "link to" or "copy" wisely.  Any time the content should be maintained by one person, use link to (ex., search box on tools page). 

http://libguides.mit.edu/tools

To add an "info link" to your list of databases:

• Easy way: Copy an existing info link on a LibGuide, and change the URL to the correct URL.  (ex., if you need to find the info link for PubMed, but you know the get URL is http://libraries.mit.edu/get/pubmed, then substitute the "get" for "info".  The info link it http://libraries.mit.edu/info/pubmed)
• Hard way: Follow the instructions on this page: https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/x/sQVsAQ

Why do we have info links?

• To include information about a database or journal (years of access, info on how to get access, etc.)
• If the info link to a resource doesn’t include helpful info, then don’t include it!
• If the information supplied on the info link page is really important, then you might consider just adding that text to your LibGuide.  (But don’t overdo it – you’ll be responsible for updating this info!)

Content:

Less is more!  Usability tests show that users get overwhelmed with a lot of content, so keep text to a minimum.  Organize your content so that you can have fewer boxes and columns.

Users tend to choose databases based on names - if the name of the database doesn't indicate the content (like Compendex), they don't go there.  Use descriptive words in or near the database titles if not clear.

Example of a clear way to do this:

Find articles related to...

• biology: BIOSIS
• chemistry: SciFinder
• computer science, electrical engineering, physics: Inspec
• engineering: Compendex
• math: MathSciNet
• medicine: PubMed
• science: Web of Science

Put databases in order by importance, not in alphabetical order.  Users tend to choose the first databases in the list, not the most relevant.  

http://libguides.mit.edu/neuroscience

Users get confused with too much contact information, so make it clear by providing one way to contact us for help.  (ex., Don't include links to Ask Us AND ask-dewey.)  LibGuides has an option for joint ownership of pages, and it will automatically add 2 profile boxes on that page.  We ask that you don’t show both profile boxes, since that's confusing and cluttered, but create a new box with contact info instead.

When new databases and journals are purchased, Sally will email subject selectors, and you’ll be able to add relevant titles to your list without asking Marion.  If you need help making info links, ask Marion.

When we cancel databases, Sally will email subject specialists.  Marion will check to see if any LibGuides have listed the cancelled database and will delete it from the LibGuide, or will consult with subject specialists as needed.

Other features:

Don't use tags feature.

You can either upload images and images through LibGuides (in edit mode), or store them on the Libraries server, and you can link to them from your LibGuide.  If you need permissions, or if you don't know how to upload, ask Marion to do it for you.  Upload to:

• www/guides/libguides/img
• www/guides/libguides/files

http://libguides.mit.edu/compsci

Making pages live:

Make sure to add a "friendly" shortcut URL for each page.  If you're making a test page, end the URL with "-test".  LibGuides won't let you use a "dot", so if you're creating a course page in LibGuides, use a hyphen in the friendly URL in place of the dot.

http://libguides.mit.edu/2-009

If you want to save an old version of a page, change the page title to include the date, or some other identifier that will show that it's an old page (ex., "Product Engineering Processes, 2007"). Also, change the shortcut URL to "pagetitle-old" (ex., biology-old), and change the status to "private."  If you have more than one old version saved, you could use "pagetitle-old-2007" or something else that would make sense.

Add one or more subject categories per page.

Keep pages public or private.  Don't bother with unpublished.

No need to get approval to post pages.  Tell Marion when it's live so she can update links to it from pages on our site that link to it, including our Site Index.

If you don't want a guide anymore, delete it!  (You can delete the page that Marion made for you originally, too, if you're not using it anymore.)