Don’t override the standard style for the guide

The content is what makes your LibGuide unique, not its appearance.  Keeping LibGuides looking consistent makes it much easier for users that access more than one LibGuide. 

Always link to general content

Rather than replicating content, link to general content such as the general Citation Management Guide.  This not only puts out a consistent message, it also creates a single point to update content rather than having multiple copies that need to be manually updated.

Keep tabs to a minimum

Try not to use more than one row of tabs for your guide.  If your guide has more than one row of tabs, consider either removing extraneous content or splitting the information up over multiple guides.

Formatting guidelines for Subject Guides

• Landing pages should have three columns.
• Guide Descriptions or Welcome type should be kept in a small box on the top of the left column.
• We recommend everyone use the shared "General Research Tools" box and have it located under the "guide description" box on left hand side. Please link to the box, which is located on the boxes page of this guide, as this will allow centralized updating.
• Consider including automatically updated content on your guide--e.g. a feed from a library blog, such as YUL News, and/or social media widgets.

Use the Short Description field

When you create a guide, use the Short Description field to give a brief description of the guide.  This information appears in several places in the LibGuide editing interface and in Google search results.

When creating a course guide, put the professor(s) name(s) in the Short Description field.

For more information

For more information, best practices, and tutorials on getting started with LibGuides, see SpringShare’s LibGuides support center: