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.

Staff photo use guidelines should be followed, if you choose to use a photo.  No avatars!  Hide the photo box on each guide, if you don't use a picture.   

http://libguides.mit.edu/compsci-test

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/mites

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/materials

Page layout:

No set limit to number of boxes allowed on page, but if it looks cluttered or if scrolling is excessive, creator should consider reorganizing or using Dreamweaver

2 and 3 column layouts are both usable.

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, but should be kept as simple as possible and labeled wisely.  Don't link tabs to URLs outside of your guide, since the tabs are meant for navigating within your guide.

http://libguides.mit.edu/humgeneral

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

You can also copy or link to database information.

• Pros of linking to the list:
  • Always up to date
• Pros of copying it: 
  • Can customize it
  • Can add the descriptions to the page
    
    See What's changing about Vera, Summer 2008 for info about how databases by subject are now integrated into LibGuides.
    

http://libguides.mit.edu/databases

Other features:

You can turn comments off, or leave them on.  Comments are centrally set to be "moderated" by the page editors. 

Don't use tags feature.

http://libguides.dartmouth.edu

Images and files can be hosted on the Libraries server for now, and you can link to them from your LibGuide.  If you need permissions, or if you don't know how to upload, ask libguides@mit.edu to do it for you.  There may be a better alternative in the future.  Upload to:

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

http://libguides.mit.edu/compsci-test

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

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.)