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LibGuides Best Practices: About LibGuides

What are LibGuides?

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What are LibGuides?

  • LibGuides is a content management system - a tool to help you create & manage web pages. There are a lot of content management systems out there, but LibGuides is specifically geared toward librarians and making their lives easier. ;)
  • When you create these web pages, you're creating guides - so, "LibGuides" can also refer to a collection of these guides. Ex. Jenny's LibGuides are way better than Jason's guides.

What Can I make With LibGuides?

What can I make with LibGuides?

Anything you want! Here are a few popular uses for LibGuides: 

  • Subject guides---Gives broad advice on research strategies based on an academic subject. A good place to start doing research
  • Course-specific guides---These guides give research guidance based on specific courses. They can go into more depth on a more specific academic topic.
  • Topic Guide--These are guides created that do not fit into the subject guides, and can be about anything. For example: Business Plans, Career Research Tools, Copyright Crash Course, Energy Resources, African American History Month, Alumni Resources, Banned Books Week, Book to Film Display, Ethics Research Guide, Global Awareness, Women's History Month
  • Tutorials & how-to's---These guides give general help on using the libraries and conducting research.They also are guides that show how to do or use something, such as: How to Cite Sources, How to Choose a Topic Guide, How to Use PubMed
  • Readers' advisory (recommended books on any topic)
  • Internal documents (meeting minutes, project notes, etc.)

We also have lots of folks who use LibGuides to create their entire library website! 

What are LibGuides Made Up of?

What are LibGuides made of?

Before you get cooking, it's good to know the ingredients! A guide is made up of pages; pages are made up of boxes; boxes contain content (text, books, widgets, images, etc.). 

We'll talk more about each of these elements in future guides, but for now, it's good to know what you'll be working with!

Image illustrating the structure of a LibGuide: Starting at the top its guide, then page, then box, then content.

A guide can contain many pages, a page can contain many boxes, and a box can contain many pieces of content.