LibGuides Best Practices

"A guide is a webpage that you can use to add and share content. Each guide can be organized into pages, each page containing boxes of content items (such as text, links, images, databases, etc.)." - Springshare

LibGuides have a couple of layers of structure

• Each guide consists of pages, that are organized into clickable tabs.
• The landing page of the guide can be any page, but most guide creators choose to call that initial page 'Home'.
• On each page, there are boxes--in the interface of the public site, these appear as actual boxes.
• Inside each box are content items. Although they do not appear as separate entities, each content item is added individually.

Organization of guides

Guides themselves are organized in different ways, such as by group, subject, librarian etc. To learn more about how guides can be organized, visit: Guide Classifications.

Pages are groupings of content on a guide, with the landing page for the guide typically a page called "Home." 

Some considerations for Pages

• The UCI Libraries uses a guide template (Side-Nav Layout - UCI Libraries) that has two columns (25% for column zero and 75% for column one).
• The template is set to Side Navigation, so the page tabs always appear in the 25% column (as opposed to top navigation).
• You can create as many pages as you would like, but remember that, sometimes, content that will only take up a small portion of a page (leaving the rest as white space) might serve better as a box on a page.
• You can create subpages, that are nested underneath main (top-level) pages.
• You can create a page that links a user directly to an external URL or other guide. See directions for this in the Springshare help center documentation below.

Page navigation options

Once you have created a guide, you can change the visibility of subpages and boxes by selecting the picture icon in the top right ribbon of options, and choosing Guide Navigation Layout. Chose from these options:

• Show all subpages in side navigation: By default, subpages will only display in the navigation menu when viewing their top-level page. However, you can choose to always display them by selecting the checkbox next to Show all subpages in side navigation.
• Show box-level navigation for select page: When viewing a page, you can choose to display links to each box on the page in the side navigation menu. To enable this, select the checkbox next to Show box-level navigation for select page.
   

The navigation placement of the UCI Libraries guide template was chosen based on evidence from the LibGuides scholarship. To learn more about this justification for side-navigation and two column layout, visit: Further Reading.

Springshare help center

Boxes are groupings of content within a page.

Some Considerations for Boxes

• When you create a box ("Add Box" at the bottom of each column), you will be asked to indicate some details about the box including its location on the page and its title. You can also select to make the box 'floating' (without borders in the public view) or 'draft mode' (will not be viewable in the public view).
• You will be able to select the type of box you would like to use:
  • standard: a normal box.
  • tabbed: a box that allows you to include horizontal tabs along the top that are mini pages within the box.
  • gallery: creates a carousel style box that can be used to display things like books, databases, images, etc. in a visual style.
  • profile: your profile box is added automatically to the first page of guides you create, but you can add other profiles or your profile on other pages.
• You'll also be given an option to reuse an existing box. Visit Reusable Content for more information on reusing boxes.
• Once a box is created, it will be blank, and the "Add / Reorder" button at the bottom of the box is where you will add a form of content. The most commonly used content types are HTML (any free text, bullet points, etc.), Database, and Link.

Springshare help center

LibGuides uses responsive web design, an approach that enables a web page to adapt to smaller screens like tablets and phones. This means that the order in which boxes display on a guide page will differ depending on the size of the device.

Responsive design tips

• Avoid using "positional language" (e.g. left, right, top, bottom) in the text to describe where content is located in the guide.

• Link to the content you are referring to within a guide, as every box has a unique URL. (Springshare: View a box's direct link)

Note that on a full-sized monitor, you can re-size your browser window to see how content will display on a smaller screen. Here's what you'll notice when viewing a guide with side-navigation layout on smaller devices:

• The navigation will be at the top.
• The box(es) in the left column will display next.
• The box(es) in the right column will wrap around and display below the box(es) in the left column.