LibGuides: Libguides Editing Guidelines: Special Collections Libguides

Checklist for Special Collections Libguides

Guideline	Example	Notes
Use a brief and consistent guide name	Primary Sources on Congressional and Political Affairs Instead of: "Guide to Primary Sources on Congressional and Political Affairs in Special Collections"	No need to say "guide to" in the title. They are all guides. No need to say "in Special Collections" in the title, since the context show that.
Create a friendly URL (for the whole guide and maybe for each page).	https://libguides.library.arizona.edu/uazhistory	Follow the Friendly URL guidelines. A friendly URL is useful for pasting into an email or putting on a poster or flyer. It's easy to read and remember (compared to the URLs that are auto-generated by Libguides).
Guide type + group assignment	Guide type = General Purpose (for most guides) Guide type = Course Guide (if it's for a specific course) Group = Special Collections	Use General Purpose for now. If your guide is for a specific course, check to see if Main Library has a course guide, and consider collaborating with the guide author to add your pages to their guide instead of creating separate guides in Special Collections.
Status	Private (while you are working on the page) Published (when you are ready to go live)	Set the Status to Private as soon as you begin your guide. That way you can share a link to it with your colleagues for feedback during the draft stage. When you are ready to go live, change status to Published. Then notify Nicole Hennig so she can link it from Research Guides - Special Collections.
Remove previous formatting when pasting from Word into your guide.		Be sure to highlight your text and click the Tx button. This strips out previous formatting so your guide will pick up the styles of all Special Collections libguides.
Use consistent spacing between paragraphs. (One blank line).	This is a paragraph. More text and more text. More sample text. This is a paragraph. More text and more text. More sample text. This page shows consistent spacing between paragraphs.	It's easy to accidentally leave too many spaces between paragraphs. Look over your page and get rid of extra blank lines between paragraphs. One blank line is enough.
Check all your links to make sure they work.	Avoid broken links.	Click each link on your guide to make sure it works. Fix any broken links before making your page live.
Links: Don't use the visible URL as a link.	Wrong: http://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/collections/james-w-toumey-agricultural-correspondence Right: James W. Toumey agricultural correspondence	When creating a link, use the name of the page you are linking to (not the URL).
When you link to a collection guide, add the call number.	Minutes of Meetings of the Board of Regents (AZ 421) See the University of Arizona History guide for more examples.	Add the call number in parentheses at the end of the name of the collection guide.
When linking to an exhibit or a digital archive, make it clear what you are linking to.	The American Vaudeville Museum Digital Archive This title tells you that it is a digital archive. Founding Mothers: From the Ballot Box to the University (online exhibit) This title doesn't say "exhibit" in it, so you could add "online exhibit" to make it clear.	If the name of the digital archive or exhibit is not clear from the title itself, add some text to make it clear.
When linking to a book, you can add a cover image if one doesn't show automatically.	See Tucson: A Basketball Town on the University of Arizona History guide.	Follow our guidelines for book cover images.
Separate content into multiple pages if it’s long.		The University of Arizona History guide is sub-divided into useful pages, rather than showing all the information on one long page. This makes it easier to scan and to quickly find and link to specific parts of the guide.
Make sure your images have “alt” text unless they are only decorative.	The alt text for this image is "UA Domestic Science class, sometime between 1900-1909"	Follow our guidelines for accessible images by writing appropriate "alt text."
Include your profile box on your guides.	Performing Arts	This guide shows the profile box on the first page. See our guidelines for profile boxes.