Guide Standards

This Guide will help you create an accessible, readable Guide that follows the best practices for creating Guides at the U.Va. Library. It lists content guidelines, suggestions for structuring your content, and tips and tricks for keeping your Guide up to date.

This Guide is NOT a how-to document that will explain how to use the LibGuide interface. Consult the Springshare LibGuides documentation for how-to information.

Guide Checklist:

There are a few elements that all U.Va. Library Guides should contain.

• On the main Guide page:
  • A Profile Box under the Navigation Menu in the left hand column
  • An Ask a Librarian chat widget with contact information in the left hand column
• At the bottom of your Navigation Menu there should be a Get Help With... menu item

Each of these items is discussed in this Guide.

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Scope

Planning is critical to the creation of a successful Guide. Here are some results from our user testing to help you think about your Guide's scope and content.

• Try not to mix general content with in-depth content in one Guide unless you have a great reason (and you might!).
• Keep course Guides separate from subject Guides (For example, create a Guide for all the courses in your area, then make each page for each course.)
• Help users know how granular your information is.

For instance, Drama is a topic, but dance, acting, and set design are subtopics. You could help users by breaking your subjects into chunks that reflect their majors, minors, or concentrations.

Devoting some time to your Guide's structure and scope before you create your Guide will save you a lot of work later!

See the Guide Structure page for more information about structuring content within your Guide.