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UConn Library's LibGuides Standards and Best Practices — Guide Types & Naming Standards

A guide to help you create and edit your subject, course, topic and general purpose guides

Guide Types

Assigning a type to a guide facilitates discovery; there are several pre-defined types of guides which are assigned under "Guide Type."  In accordance with the LGMT Policy, Subject or Course guides for curricular support may be created independently but are subject to review by LGMT. General Purpose, Internal, and Topic guides are created in consultation with LGMT.

Guide Types

Subject
Research guides designed to provide instruction and guidance on a specific academic subject, e.g. History, Political Sciences

Course
Guides designed to support the teaching and research needs of a specific course, e.g. _EEB 5347: Principles and Methods of Systematic Biology

Topic
Guides that pull together information on a central topic, tool, or research area that is not generally considered to be an academic department or program, e.g. Topic: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL).

The purpose of creating topic guides should still be a pedagogical one, so make sure that your topic guide frame the topic vis-a-vis our library resources (databases, books, journals, other research guides). Offer advice on the guide on how to research the guide topic and similar topics. If you have questions, please consult with LGMT before creating Topic guides.

 

General Purpose
Guides that provide general information on a collection or service at the library, e.g. Research QuickStart
Please consult with LGMT before creating General Purpose guides

Internal
Guides made to be shared and used by library staff, e.g. UConn Library's LibGuides Standards and Best Practices
Please consult with LGMT before creating Internal guides

Subjects & Tags

Subjects & Tags

  • Assign each guide at least one subject (e.g., History, Engineering).
  • Do not use tags to describe a guide. Tagging tends to have very poor authority control.

Naming Standards

  • Subject Guides: include the subject/discipline name and "Subject Guide", e.g. History Subject Guide
  • Course Guides: include one dash (_), course abbreviation, course number, and course name, e.g._NURS 4265: Nursing Past as Prologue
    • The dash is necessary for display purposes on the Subject landing page.
  • Topic Guides: include the word topic and the name of the guide, e.g. Topic: Transatlantic Slavery and the Slave Trade
    • Placing "Topic" at the beginning of the title is necessary for display purposes on the Subject landing page.
  • General Purpose/Internal Guides: no specific naming convention is required for these types of guides, however the name should be descriptive of the guide content, e.g. Grants
  • Friendly URL names:  Based on the guide type you selected, assign an abbreviated version of the guide's title for your friendly URL. Likewise for friendly URLs for individual pages inside a guide. Examples:

◘ For a Course guide: http://guides.uconn.edu/nurs4265;

◘ For a Subject guide: http://guides.uconn.edu/sociology;

◘ For a page in a guide: http://guides.uconn.edu/standards_best_practices/links

◘ For other types, a brief version of the guide name: e.g. National Hispanic Heritage Month  http://guides.uconn.edu/latinoheritage

 

Note: Because lists under the Subject main landing page are organized in alphabetic order, we decided to use a dash for course guides and the word "topic" for topic guides, to control the display and make sure that the main Subject guide is always the first one display under the specific subject, then topics and finally course guides.

 

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