LibGuides Best Practices

Classification and Naming

As a library staff, create the following:

• Naming conventions (example)
• LibGuide style guidelines (example)
• Guidelines for use of librarian profile boxes
• How to license your LibGuides (Creative Commons or other)
• Navigation layout (Tab or Side-Nav) (literature review)
• Subjects
• Tags

 
Subjects should align to departmental name (e.g. Engineering, History, Biography) or to academic term (e.g. Fall 2024).

Tags should not replicate guide names or subject terms. Use synonyms or specific terms to improve findability.

Friendly URLs

Friendly URLs make it easy to quickly see and understand the purpose of the page. For example, 

/g=46515&p=365289

is not intuitive but

/libguidesintro/thebasics

carries meaning.

• Friendly URLs should be added to all pages.
• Should always be lowercase.
• Use letters, numbers, dashes and underscores.
• Limit to one or two words.

The friendly URLs can be set in the following ways:

• Guide: click the pencil next to the URL label
• Page: click the pencil icon in the bordered box next to the Page URL label. This must be set for every page individually.

Attribution

Adapted from Boston College.