NYU Libraries LibGuides Style Manual

When you have an idea for a guide, it's worth doing a little homework before getting started:

• Check to see if a guide already exists for the purpose.

  • If so, consider updating the existing guide as needed.
    • If the guide belonged to your predecessor and you need ownership transferred to you, contact the User Experience department.
    • If the guide belongs to a colleague, consider proposing to that colleague that you become a co-author.

• Consider whether a guide is the best venue for your content.

  • For instance, maybe NYU Libraries' website is a better place for it? Or maybe a WordPress site?
  • Consult with the User Experience department to determine alternative platform options.

• Think carefully about your audience.

  • Are you targeting undergraduates? Grad students? Colleagues? All members of the NYU Community? Beyond the NYU Community?
  • How will you center the user in the design? What need will it fill and how will it empower users?

• Don't recreate the wheel!

  • There is no shame in building off the hard work of others (don't forget to attribute when necessary!).
  • Take a look at what others are doing by browsing the LibGuides Community Site.

You've done your homework and have decided to go forward? At this point, there are five actions to complete:

1. Initiate a guide.
2. Name your guide and assign it to a "Type" category.
3. Be sure the guide layout to side navigation.
4. Assign a friendly URL.
5. Add metadata to enhance discoverability. (Note that you can always go back and add more metadata later.)

Reminder to use the checklist: As you create your guide and add content, be sure that you are working through the Checklist for Creating a Guide. Also, don't forget to submit an accessibility review request before publishing your guide!

To initiate a guide, go to the LibGuides Home Page and click the "Create Guide" link, where you'll choose one of two options:

• By choosing the "Start fresh" option, you'll get a dialog box that has you:
  1. Choose whether you want to start fresh or copy an existing guide
  2. Give the guide a name.
  3. Provide a brief description (helpful for surfacing the guide in web searches).
  4. Choose a guide type.


• By choosing the "Copy content/layout from an existing page" option, you'll get a dialog box that has you:
  1. From a list, choose the guide you want to copy. The guide named "LibGuides Template" is a good option for getting started, but you can use any guide on the list as a template. (Preview the "LibGuides Template" here.)
  2. Give the guide a name.
  3. Provide a brief description (helpful for surfacing the guide in web searches).
  4. Choose a guide type.

Springshare help:

• Create or copy a guide
• Edit a guide's name & description

NYU Libraries supports four types of guides, each associated with a naming convention. By selecting a guide type, you'll ensure that the guide shows up in the correct category on the NYU Libraries' Research Guides directory page, under the "Types" tab. NYU Libraries support four types of guides:

• Subject Guide
• How-To & Help Guide
• Course Guide
• Library Service, Space, or Program Guide

Subject Guide

• Purpose: Provides a comprehensive overview of doing research in a particular subject area, highlighting essential sources in NYU Libraries' collection and pointing to selected outside sites.
• Naming convention: It's helpful to align the guide name with its corresponding NYU program. In cases where the guide is either broader or more specific than a program, take care to choose an accurate, understandable name.
• Examples:
  • Sociology
  • Civil and Urban Engineering
  • Mass Incarceration

How-To & Help Guide

• Purpose: Provides general research guidance or help using a specific resource or tool.
• Examples:
  • NYU Libraries Online Tutorials
  • Citation Style Guide
  • Copyright
  • Bloomberg Guide

Course-Specific Guide

• Purpose: Provides research guidance tailored to a specific course
• Naming convention: Course number followed by course name

Library Service, Space, or Program Guide

• Purpose: Describes a library service or space, or highlights an engagement program/outreach effort
• Naming convention: If a service/space guide, the name should be consistent with service/department name or how a space is referred to on the NYU Libraries website.
• Examples:
  • Data Services
  • Jack Brause Library for Real Estate
  • Hack Dibner
  • NYU Reads
  • NYU Welcome: The Libraries

Be sure to use side navigation rather than tabs (top) navigation. In creating your guide, if you opted to "Start fresh" (rather than copying the Generic Template or other guide) you might have accidentally chosen "Tabs Layout," which configures navigation in tabs at the top of the LibGuide. Our policy of maintaining design consistency and accessibility requires that you change to side navigation.

To set your guide to side navigation:

1. At the top right of your guide, click the image icon drop-down menu.
2. Choose "Guide Navigation Layout."
3. Choose "System Default - Side-Nav Layout."
4. Check the boxes labeled "Show all subpages in side navigation" (required) and "Show box-level navigation for selected page" (optional, but recommended)

Side navigation is always a 2-column layout:

• The left column is narrow, with the navigation first, followed by your profile, and then any additional boxes you want to put in the column (which you might use for "sidebar" content, such as your profile box or a chat widget, etc.).
• The right column is wider and is meant to hold the main content.

The URL generated by the LibGuides system is long, messy, and hard to type correctly. You should assign a shorter, friendlier URL to your guide (as well as to each page of your guide) to make it easier for users to type and remember, improving the odds that your guide will get used regularly.

Springshare help: Assign a friendly URL to a guide and its pages

Friendly URL examples:

• Subject Guide: https://guides.nyu.edu/journalism
• How-To & Help Guide: https://guides.nyu.edu/online-tutorials
• Course Guide: http://guides.nyu.edu/hsed-ue-175
• Library Service, Space, or Program: http://guides.nyu.edu/nyu-reads

Tips for creating friendly URLs:

• For the guide URL, use the guide name. For individual page URLs, use the page name, if it’s short. If it's more than 4 words, you’ll need to be a bit creative.
• Aim for readable words that are easy to spell and remember, and informative enough when context is absent.
• For A11y purposes:
  • Use all lower case.
  • Use hyphens to separate words
  • Don't use special characters (e.g. %, *, &, #, !).
• Once a friendly URL is established and in use, try to avoid editing it so existing users are not stuck with a broken link.

In HTML, <meta> tags contain metadata that helps search engines find and rank the relevancy of a webpage. These can be found inside the <head> element of a page.

• All LibGuides pages are assigned specific Dublin Core metadata by default, which are contained inside of the <meta> tags in each page.
• Guides should have at least one "Subject" assigned. Subjects are organized by the UX Team, so if you believe a subject is missing or needs to be updated, contact lib-ux-group@nyu.edu
• You can also add your own metadata ("Tags"), which can:
  • Improve your guide's ranking in search engines
  • Enhance interoperability with the learning management system

Springshare help:

• Assign subjects & tags to a guide
• Adding & managing metadata while editing a guide