The Countway LibGuides Committee was charged with organizing Countway’s existing LibGuides and developing guidelines for maintaining and creating future LibGuides.

Committee members: Michelle Bass, Iris Jahng, Charlotte Lellman, Meredith Solomon

The following points are excerpted from Harvard LibGuides Best Practices: 

Web Accessibility

Guides must meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.1 Level AA Conformance (WCAG 2.1 AA)

Make sure your guide includes:

Closed captioning for videos

Transcripts for audio files

Alternate text for images

• Writing good alt text to describe images
  • Add alt text for all non-decorative images
  • Keep it short and descriptive, like a tweet
  • Don’t include “image of” or “photo of” (screen readers already notify users when they are on an image)
  • Leave alt text blank (alt=””) if the image is purely decorative
  • It's not necessary to add text in the Title field

Use meaningful and consistent text for link names

Use HMTL headings rather than font size or boldface to indicate sections of a page to work well with screen readers

Keep Your LibGuide(s) Up To Date

The “Last Updated” date at the bottom of your guide should indicate that it has been updated within the past 6 months.

Be Clear & To the Point

Guides should have a limited number of resources in each section (no specific number is provided but we want to avoid having long running lists of materials); resources should be listed in order of importance; use brief, jargon-less language.

Take Credit for your Work

Guides should include profile boxes or contact information and a photograph

Let Users Know What to Expect

Clearly indicate print books and subscription resources versus freely available resources. Use the following best practices for links to books and e-resources:

• If you choose to include print books in your guide, they should be added as links that go to their HOLLIS record and should be titled as below. The addition of call numbers, etc. is unneeded and cluttering.
  • America at the Polls, 1960-2004 (Print Only)
  • Whenever possible, resource links should be to electronic materials. Harvard subscription resources including e-books should be indicated with the text below (not the shield icon) as part of the title. Specific resources should be favored over entire databases so the description can be customized.
    • National Journal (Harvard Login)

Check your links

Please check the links in your guides frequently. For links added as Databases, Links, or Book Assets in your guide, you can use Springshare's Link Checker feature.

Go to Link Checker under Tools, enter your name in the box for owner, and then click on the edit icon to correct the url.

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These remaining points are specific to Countway Library LibGuides:

Ownership

Every guide has a single owner but may have multiple editors. We encourage you to assign at least one editor for each guide. See “Adding Editors,” below. Creating editors enables collaboration across the library, and maintaining guides can be a shared responsibility across editors.

Topics

If you are thinking about creating a LibGuide, please consider the following:

• Is this topic popular among researchers?
  • If you’re looking through current LibGuide offerings and notice a guide on a similar topic to the one you are considering, please reach out to the guide owner and ask if they are interested in adding you as an editor to add new content on their existing guide.
  • Do we have a lot of collections that cover this topic?
  • Do we have digitized content on this topic?
  • Is a LibGuide the best way to convey this information?
    • Would a blog post, webpage, social media post, event, or education session be more appropriate?
    • Can you commit to keeping it maintained and in compliance with digital accessibility guidelines over time?
    • Remember there is a Course Guide option in LibApps 
      • You can create a focused LibGuide for a semester of instruction that can be hidden during the rest of the year and updated and turned back on at the start of a new semester.

Making your guide (Suggested order of events)

Group Assignment (this is the fifth field on the form)

Select Countway Library – Health Sciences

Choose Layout

You will most likely want to start with a fresh new LibGuide template.

• ·         You have already selected the group assignment as Countway Library – Health Sciences
• ·         Now you can select System Default – Side-Nav Layout

Guide Name

Try to make name of your guide as brief and descriptive as possible

Guide Description

Add a sentence or two describing the content in your guide

Guide Type

Choose either Subject or Course guide depending on the primary use for the guide

Password

Not needed

Share Guide Content

Leave Community checked

Adding Content to Your Guide

Profile Box

This is a requirement for it to be indexed in HOLLIS.  For instructions on making your profile box, please refer to the Best Practices LibGuide.

Subject headings

We encourage the use of subject headings so users unfamiliar with Countway resources can discover materials from any Harvard library.

Assign at least one relevant subject heading(s) for your guide.

Please select your headings from the following Countway-approved list: 

If you would like to suggest a new subject heading for inclusion in the Countway list of approved subject headings, please contact Michelle Bass (michelle_bass@hms.harvard.edu) with your idea and at least two additional existing guides that you would add the subject heading to.  We want to avoid new Countway subject headings that only have one relevant guide.

Tags

Do not copy the subject heading(s) for use as tags. Tags are not required. 

Creating a friendly URL

Keep it brief and descriptive; not required but suggested.

Adding Editors

Consider adding someone from outside your department and/or from another library on campus. Collaboration is key! 

• To add an editor, go to the Guide Settings and select Guide Editors.
• Type in the name of any Harvard Library staff member who has a LibApps account to add them as an editor. 
• If you are unable to do so, please contact Michelle for troubleshooting. 
• Note that LibGuide administrators, such as Michelle or Scott, do not need to be added formally as editors as they can edit ALL LibGuides.

Guide status

When you start creating a guide, the default status is “unpublished.” You can change the status of a guide at any time.  When your guide is complete, please remember to publish it.

Guide layout

Please leave this alone. Thank you.

Getting a new guide indexed in HOLLIS

After following the steps outlined above, you can then contact Scott Lapinski (p_lapinski@hms.harvard.edu) and ask him to submit the guide to Discovery-to-Delivery Working Group (D2D) for indexing.