LibGuides Best Practices: Maintenance & Publishing Checklist

Research guides are discoverable in the Library Catalog; newly published guides and updated guide metadata (title, author, subjects, guide link) are loaded to Primo daily.  Newly created guides and updates to guide metadata will be reflected in the library Catalog the next day.

Guides are not automatically removed from the Library Catalog when they are deleted from the system or if their status has changed from published to unpublished. Although the guide is no longer accessible/searchable in LibGuides’ native interface, it is still searchable in the library Catalog, but the link to the guide will no longer work. Links to guides set to private will continue to work, however, you may wish to consider removing private guides from Library Catalog search results if the content will not be updated frequently.

To remove a libguide from the Library Catalog search result:

• Submit an INFORM in the ILS and Discovery Tool queue, let LTDS know that you want a guide to be removed from the library catalog search result.  
  • LTDS will initiate a fresh load of published libGuides into Primo, when the refresh completes, all unpublished/deleted guides will be removed from the catalog discovery layer.
• When submitting the INFORM, please include the complete guide name, e.g. “SOC 1111 – Mass Incarceration in the U.S. – Patterson”.

• Create a reminder in your calendar to review links and content on a regular basis
• Colors and fonts are standard
• Tab titles are standard and do not wrap
• Columns have been adjusted to avoid empty spaces
• Librarian profile is available on main page (with picture or image)
• LibGuide has a standard title and URL
• All external web links are set to open in a new page
• Links to books have cover images
• Websites have brief annotations
• Lists are limited to 5 - 7 resources or less (or broken up and grouped thematically)
• Online resources (excluding databases) are in link format not embedded within Rich Text Boxes (so that the link checker can be used)
• Consider adding a backup editor
• All text boxes have been proofread for spelling and grammar