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How to create new content, or reuse existing content, for guides once you have set them up. Please read this page first, followed by the Pages, boxes and assets page, before the pages about creating specific types of content.
You may need to create content from scratch for your guide, which is covered later in this section of the best practices guide. Before adding any content to your guide, please consider whether you can reuse existing content. A benefit of LibGuides is the ability to reuse a page, a box, or asset. Information appears consistently to users across our guides and we save time, as reusable content can be stored and updated centrally, and mapped to multiple pages.
There are 2 ways that you can reuse content:
The content isn't stored in your guide, just mapped to it. It works well for generic content, as it creates a consistent experience for users, and it will be updated centrally, e.g. Explore search box, Library Skills calendar. In skills guide and subject guide templates, there is existing reusable content that you may be asked not to edit or remove.
Useful if you see content that you'd like to use, but it really needs to be tailored to your subject area. This can save the time of creating it from scratch, but it will need to be updated by you. Before making a copy of a reusable asset, consider whether it really needs to be tailored and that you will be able to keep it up to date.
If you choose to make your own copy of a reusable box, check that any text, examples, hyperlinks or mailto: links included are updated. Some boxes in the Subject Guide template, for example, include instructional text for guide editors, or hyperlinks which are placeholders and will need to be updated when used in your particular guide.
Note that any within-guide links need to be updated after you have created friendly URLs for all the pages. If you change the page URLs at any point, the links will break unless you update them.
Before you create content, check the reusable assets guide to see if it already exists, then note down the name of the box. If so, reuse it rather than creating a new version.
To reuse content in your guide, follow the instructions for adding a new page or box, then:
Library skills and subject guides each have 3 columns.
For the navigation menu only.. Please do not add any boxes to the left column. They show at the top of the page when viewed on a mobile device, above the title. The only exception is in Library Skills guides where the image for the relevant skills theme may be inserted without a title below the menu, by re-using the box from the page for the appropriate theme in the re-usable asset guide.
Main and text-heavy content should go in the central column, so that it is easier for users to read and doesn't take up as much vertical space in the guide.
Generally used for calendar feeds from LibCal, useful links, embedded videos and tips.
If you need to create content that isn't in the reusable asset guide, but you think others might want to use it in their guides, please consider creating it in the reusable assets guide and then mapping it over from there. Colleagues will then be able to find and use it if it's relevant to them. To do this, click on Content, then Guides, and search for Reusable assets. If you can't find it in the list, contact Lindsay Ure (for subject guides) or Angela Young (for Skills guides).
A collection of one or more pages. Each page is represented as a tab, or sub-tab within the guide.
Forms all or part of a LibGuide. Comprised of boxes of content.
A container for specific content (asset/s) on a page.
A piece of content, displayed within a box. This could be text, a web or database link, an embedded video or image, etc
