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SpringyNews - A New Spring Outlook

March 2021

LibGuides Tips & Tricks: Helpful Shortcuts

It's traditionally a busy time of year as students gear up for midterms, library programming is underway, and we generally have more energy as the days get longer in the northern hemisphere. In this edition of LibGuides Tips & Tricks, we bring you some bite-sized shortcuts geared towards making you and your users' lives a little easier!

Visualizing A-Z Resources

Quickly convey information about your individual databases with resource icons. Not only do they provide some visual interest to your A-Z list, but they also can direct a user to a library login page, FAQ, or other access help page.

If you're not currently using them, here are a few examples of what they can tell students/patrons.

Steps to Add Resource Icons

  1. Choose your image! PNG files tend to work well for resource icons.
  2. Go to Content > Assets and click on the Icons tab.
  3. Click the Add Icon button and add its information.
  4. Once the icon is saved, head to Content > A-Z Database List.
  5. Click to edit a database and open Assign Resource Icons in the right-hand column.
  6. Select its corresponding icons and click Save. You'll see the icon on your site's A-Z list and wherever the database appears on a guide.

Sharing Direct Links

Eliminate the need to say “head to this page, scroll down to ____ and click on the third option” with link fragments. These optional link placeholders tell a web browser to skip to a certain section of a page. And while they sound super technical, they're easy to create and share!

Link Fragment Examples:

https://library.libguides.com/welcome#request
https://library.libguides.com/apa#social-media
https://library.libguides.com/visit#s-lg-box-123456

In each link, the part of the URL starting with a hash symbol (#) is a fragment. And as you can see, not only does it create a shortcut for your users, but it can also provide a clear indication to them where they will land.

How can you create these in LibGuides? There are two different ways!

Link to a specific box

Easily link to a specific box that contains your library's contact information or 'request an item' form. 

  1. Find the box and click on the pencil () icon in its header. Copy the Box ID number at the top of the Box Info tab.
  2. Use the box ID to create a link fragment: #s-lg-box-[box id]. The final link you share will look like:
https://yourlibrary.libguides.com/welcome#s-lg-box-123456

Link to a block of text using an anchor

To direct a user to a section of Rich Text/HTML content, you can create a link fragment with the rich text editor! 

  1. In the rich text editor place the cursor where you want the anchor to go and click the Anchor (flag) button.
  2. Give your anchor a unique name, which will create a link to that anchor.
  3. Click save and a red flag icon will appear next to it when editing the Rich Text/HTML content item.
  4. To link to an anchor, enter the full URL of the page followed by a hash and the anchor's name:
https://yourlibrary.libguides.com/welcome#contact

See link fragments in action:

Backing Up, Backing Up

Modifying your guide? If you're planning on making any large changes, make it a habit to first make an HTML guide backup! This simple initial step can save you a lot of stress and heartache later if you decide that your restructuring idea didn't work out as you'd hoped or if you removed some content and want it back later. While it won't automatically restore your content, it will give you that all-important blueprint to recreate it!

Steps:

  1. On the guide edit screen, click on the Guide Information () menu.
  2. Under BACKUP/EXPORT, select Create HTML Backup.
  3. In the resulting popup, you can optionally save the HTML file right away.
  4. A copy will also be available in Tools > Data Exports > Guide HTML.

When to Backup:

  • Before making major content changes

Note: Deleting a guide automatically creates an HTML backup.

Customizing Guide Types

Guide types are handy to guide creators and editors who need to organize site content, as well as to guide readers who need to quickly jump to certain types of information. 

But did you know you can change the name of your guide types? While this doesn't change each type's behavior (read our FAQ on how guide type affects visibility), you can either make the type's name better reflect the type of content that's in it, or how you're using it.

Change Guide Type Labels Sitewide:

  1. Head to Admin > Look & Feel
  2. Click on Language Options tab > Language Customizations
  3. Select Global and scroll down to labels 173-178.
  4. Enter the new guide type labels in the text fields.

Where You'll See New Labels:

  • On the default site/group homepage in "By Type" list
  • When logged in, in Content > Guides
  • On the guide edit screen

For more information on customizing your site's language options, read our related FAQ.