Skip to Main Content

LibGuides Best Practices

A LibGuide about LibGuides

Creating a New Guide

***Before you create a new guide consider if there is an existing guide you can edit instead***

Go to      Content   > Guides    click + Create Guide above the list of all guides.

OR >      Home   and scroll down to the LibGuides Shortcuts box, then click Create Guide.

1 - Choose layout or reuse

If you use the Start Fresh option you will get a blank guide formatted in OC's standard template. There will be no content in the guide when it is created.

If you use the Copy content/layout from an existing guide option:

  • Choose Local Guides and click in the "Select a guide" box
  • Start typing the name of the guide you want to copy
  • Select the guide from the search results.

Keep in mind that copying a guide creates duplicates of every element of the guide which can cause a maintenance burden.

2 - Guide Name

Course Guide: start with the course code and number, then add relevant other information (generally in largest to smallest order)

ENGL 100
ENGL 100: Introductory English
ENGL 100: Penticton, Sally Smith
 

Topic Guides: the topic in the briefest plain English required.

Seed Library
Census 2020
Raspberry Pi

Program-Level Guides: Spell out the name in plain English as it is in the calendar. If there is another word essential for findability add it after the program name.

English
Communications
English for AACP

Citation Guides: the name of the citation style or a brief description of the content.

APA
Chicago
APA for Business

3 - Guide Description:

Enter a brief description of guide content.

4 - Guide Type

Course Guide: guides for specific courses
Subject Guide: guides for specific programs/departments (displays as Guides by Program in some menus)
General Purpose Guide: citation and plagiarism guides (displays as Citation Guides)
Topic Guide: for topics that do not fit into one of the above (can be tagged to display in lists for a program)
Internal Guide: for limited access
Template Guide: for templates to reuse for later guides

5 - Friendly URL

Create a friendly url that will be easier to read. Similar to guide names these should follow the naming conventions. Use an underscore to create a space between elements for easier human reading. Try to make friendly URLs as short as possible while still unique

Course Guide metadata largest to smallest: year before term, campus before instructor. Use course codes instead of full names.

https://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/BUAD_176
https://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/CMNS_112_Modahl

Program-Level Guides: Spell out the name in plain English as it is in the calendar.

https://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/Accounting

Topic Guides: as brief as possible to be clear

https://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/copyright
https://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/ebooks

Citation Guides: as brief as possible to be clear

https://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/APA

6 - Create Guide

Click the button - your new guide displays.

This site is maintained by the librarians of Okanagan College Library.
If you wish to comment on an individual page, please contact that page's author.
If you have a question or comment about Okanagan College Library's LibGuides site as a whole, please contact the site administrator.