UBC LibGuides: Guidelines

UBC Library has over 500 published guides for users to choose from. Before creating another guide, consider the following questions:

• What is the unique library instructional topic that you plan to address with your guide?
• Is there an existing guide that could be modified or added to in order to meet user needs?
• Who could you collaborate with on content to address the instructional gap that you're working to address? 
• Is the instructional need specific to one class/assignment, or will it have enduring value for users? Consider creating a course guide and publishing it for a limited time to support this need

To create a new guide, log in to LibApps and, in the LibGuides Shortcuts box, choose "Create Guide." 

You can either create a guide from scratch by choosing "Start Fresh," or you can make a copy of an existing guide to use as a template.

Springshare: Create, Copy and Manage Guides

Each guide must be attached to at least one branch/unit LibGuides account. This serves two purposes:

1. branch accounts allow for guides to be updated when people are on leave from work without any account management
2. branch accounts help to facilitate an annual review process

A list of branch/unit accounts can be found on Confluence.

Springshare: Assign editors to a guide

The LibGuides platform supports numerous types of content. In all cases, you can create new content or reuse existing content. When reusing, you have the option to "map" or reuse as-is (without the ability to edit), or, to copy content and then modify it.

Springshare instructions:

• Add, reuse or edit pages
• Add boxes to pages
• Add content items (assets) to boxes
• Add links to Databases A-Z
• Add gallery boxes

Do you want your guide to appear in the Research Guides portal?

• If the answer is yes:
  • follow all of the steps on the Guide Organization page to assign a type, group, subject, and tags
  • create a friendly URL (this helps patrons to navigate the URL and impacts the LibGuides internal relevance search)
    • it is the best practice to assign a friendly URL to each page
  • follow the steps here for a "published" guide Publish Your New Guide
• If the answer is no:
  • do not assign your guide to a type, group or subject
  • create a friendly URL if you want
  • follow the steps here for a "private" guide Publish Your New Guide
  • Users must have the URL to be able to navigate to your guide, they will not be able to search for it and find it (in Google or LibGuides)