LibGuides at the U of M Libraries

In order to create high-quality work and be successful, users need to easily find the best, most relevant information for their task, whether research- or course-related. To meet this need, library staff need a tool to facilitate providing relevant, context-sensitive resources to users for their instruction and research needs. You can also create pages or boxes for specific assignments, and/or use guides for classroom visits! 

• Create a simplified guide based on course topics to support student assignments.
• Guide should have a course designator (e.g. CHEM), course number (e.g. 1061), and section number if sections include different content (e.g. 003). Be sure to have a maintenance plan for future semesters, as it is the responsibility of liaisons to upkeep these pages.
• Be sure that this page is different enough from its subject guide.
• Try to be only as specific as needed, and keep things general where you can to allow for easier maintenance/updating.
• View an example: AMIN 1003 - American Indians in Minnesota.

• Use WCMC guidelines for titles, descriptions, etc.
• Content is displayed as a single page, so selecting only the most relevant sources is necessary to make the pages legible.
• Be sure you know how to reuse boxes on the Reusable LibGuides Boxes guide if you are adding a library service or collection, to ensure the content (including links) is maintained centrally.

1. Go to https://umn.libapps.com/libguides/  
2. Select the University of Minnesota Shibboleth link.  
3. Select "LibGuides" in the upper left to get back to the main screen.  
4. Go to "Create Guide."  
5. Select "copy content/layout from an existing guide."  
6. Select "Blueprint: Course Guide by Amy Drayer"  
7. Enter guide name (format: Course Designator: Course Title — see example below). To do this, please verify the course title against the course catalog.  
8. Enter guide description using the following guidelines/text: "This guide covers search tools for research in topics related to..." OR "This guide is designed for new researchers to find articles, sources, and get started with research in topics related to..."  
9. Select guide type "course guide."  
10. Select group assignment "UMN" and share guide content "Internal" (unless you have plans to share beyond UMN Libraries).
    
11. Select "create guide."  

In order for the page to automatically show up in Canvas, the metadata needs to align with the course information. 

1. Select the "gear," then select "Guide Metadata."
    
2. Select "Custom Metadata."  
3. Select "empty" and enter the course information: Name: "courseID" (for every course) Value: course designator/course number (e.g. AMIN/1003) You can add multiple course designators if it's cross-listed.  Tip: If it's listed as a Writing intensive course, don't forget the W!  
4. Go to the checkbox under "public."

Note: If you must create pages for different sections (because the course content is different between sections), add that to the URL as well (e.g. WRIT/1301/005). Be sure to have a maintenance plan as section topics tend to change and section numbers are changed each semester. These will need to be updated more frequently than typical course guides.

1. Go to "Add Box - Column 1."
2. Select "create new box" or "reuse existing box." Instructions for reusing a box can be found in the "Reuse a box" tab of this guide. If creating your own box, add the box name with sentence casing (e.g. Find articles, Find background information). Try to avoid labels based on the source type (e.g. encyclopedias, databases, journals). Box type should be "standard" and position should be "top of the column." Add additional boxes as needed.
3. Add databases, links/assets, or embed videos in the boxes. You can reuse boxes from any guide on various pages the same way you would reuse content from the reusable boxes guide. (For more information on adding these types of materials, check out the "Add or edit a link/asset" tab or the "Add a book or journal" tab of this guide. For information on how to add photos and videos, visit the "Add a photo or video" tab of this guide.)
   
   Note: When adding a link/asset/widget, you get the option to "link" or to "copy." In general, we want to have them linked so that if one box is updated centrally, they are all updated. If it is copied, each individual link will need to be updated separately.

Edit the URL to make it friendly and logical. These are not created automatically. To do this, select the edit pencil next to "URL" and add the course designator/course number.

Friendly URL styles: 

• Subject guides: /subject-name
  Example: https://ulibguides.umn.edu/english
• Course guides: /course/SUBJ/NUMBER
  Example: https://libguides.umn.edu/course/ENGL/1001
• General and Topic guides: /guide-name
  Example: https://libguides.umn.edu/research-basics

Select the "Unpublished" dropdown, which will create a pop up. From here, you can change the status. 

Published means the guide is searchable by Canvas, by Google, and will show up in a LibGuides search. (We're working on making Guides more findable!) 

Private means the guide is only accessible if you have a direct link to the Guide. 

Our Course Materials colleagues prebuild the Library Course Materials page for every course at the University. Every Library Course Materials page includes  three links. The top link is always the link to the LibGuide for either the course or the subject that is applicable to the course. (The other two are student support services and study space finder). So, the vast majority of the ~15,000 pages we build every semester only have these three links. About 17% of them have course reserves listed in addition to the three links. 

Some instructors remove the menu item. To bring it back, instructors can follow these instructions.