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Springshare CMS: LibGuides

This LibGuide provides information about the Springshare products Reference oversees or uses extensively. This Guide provides basic "how-to" information for IOT Library employees using these products.

Overview

Viewing and Opening Guides

Click on     Content   > Guides to view a list of all guides.
You can open any published or private guide, see the guide owner and filter and sort the list in various ways. 

You can open your own guide for editing (or delete it)  (Admins can edit or delete any guides)

Guides Search Table

Easiest way to find a guide > enter a keyword or staff name in the box at top of that column.
You can view a list of only the published guides, or one person's guides or list guides by type - e.g. Subject, General Purpose or Internal guides.

Default view shows 25 guides per page, or scroll to bottom of list and increase the number of guides per page (i.e. to 50 or 100 guides per page).

To access your own guides - 2 options

1 - Open your guide from the Content > Guides screen. Start typing your guide or own name in the search box. When your guide displays in the list - to open the guide click on the    Edit icon under ACTIONS. Tip: to open guide in a new tab, center click or right click on the edit icon.

WARNING - you can also Delete your guide from this screen - be careful!

Home Shortcut Screen tioaccess guides

2 - On your LibGuides Home page > LibGuides Shortcuts > Edit Existing Guide

The default order here is Published guides first, then Private and lastly Unpublished guides.

Note - Opening guides this way will always open the guide in the current tab - there is no option to center or right click to open in a new tab.

Guide Types:

  • General purpose- explanatory guides, tool related guides, services guides, resource center guides
  • Course Guide- Course guides
  • Subject Guide- for guides related to degree programs and specializations
  • Topic Guide- do not use, use general purpose instead
  • Internal Guide- for internal use only, will not be displayed to students and faculty. Process and how-to for admin of Springshare.
  • Template Guide- for templates only - are the blueprint guides set as template guides? How do we use?

Subjects

  • Add subject associations to your guide by clicking on the pencil icon in the top left corner next to Subjects 

  • Please associate your guide with at least one subject for findability 

Tags

  • Add as many tags as needed to make your guide discoverable in guide & Discovery searches 

LibGuides Groups

Customization Options for Group Pages

FAQ Groups

Logging in/your account

Adding/editing content

Creating and managing guides

Adding a class guide to the Class Guides page

  • At top of guide, in the "Tag" field, add "2019-fall" or "2019-spring" (change year/semester as appropriate) - that's it!
  • If there is no box for the new semester displaying on the Class Guides page yet, contact IOT-Library@iot.edu to request it.

LibGuides

Create a New Guide

  1. Go to LibGuides Home
  2. Select Create Guide – Select the appropriate template guide (Blueprint/Storage guide for your Resource Center)
  3. Assign your guide the following: Give your guide a name, Guide Type: Subject Guide, Share guide content? Community
  4. Click Create Guide

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Mapped Pages and Boxes

Note: there are many boxes in this guide that are mapped to the STORAGE GUIDE. If you see this icon undefined that means it is mapped. These boxes can be deleted, but not edited in the new guide.

  • To edit a mapped box, go to the STORAGE GUIDE and make any edits to the box there – these edits will filter to all locations where the box is mapped.
  • To create a box to be used in all guides, that may need to be edited later, go to the STORAGE GUIDE and create the box and contents there.

Guide Home – Areas to Edit

  1. URL – create a friendly URL using your guide’s specialization name (Resource Centers, if the guide is a subset of your center consider hierarchy. For example if Zoom is a subguide for the CTL, then the custom guide URL should be "ctl/zoom")
  2. Add Subject(s) – To add a subject not listed go to Admin > Metadata & URLs (verify with governance - currently limited to set Library topics)
  3. Home Page box – edit/add your specialization name
  4. Start Your Research Here! box – cannot be edited because it is mapped to Storage Guide 
  5. Librarian profile – click the Gear icon to change the profile. 

Best Practices

Reuse Existing Assets! – Be sure to use this option and create once and reuse, rather than create a duplicate document, link or widget. 

Springshare Help:

How to add, reuse, and edit Document/File assets

How to add, reuse, and edit Link assets

How to add, reuse, and edit Media / Widget assets

Add Content

Documents and Files

Maximum file size per upload is 10MB   
(Maximum allotment for the Illawarra LibGuides site is 5 GB)

File types you can upload:

PDFs, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, other Office files or files from similar suites

Files types you can't upload:

Flash or other video files, audio files, any other streaming-type files

Click on   Add/Reorder menu - select Document / File.
Either create a New Document or click the Reuse Existing Document tab to search for an existing document/file in LibGuides.

Fill out the fields for the asset. These include:

  • Document Title: The title your users will see.
  • Description: Additional details about the link.
  • Description Display: Set how the description is displayed for the link.
  • Attached File:  Click Select File to locate the new file on your computer and attach to guide.
  • Position: Where the document link should go in the box
  • Click Save.

Widgets to add Special Content

Widgets

Easily embed content in any website using a JavaScript snippet. Widgets for Guides, Subjects, Users, Search Box, Content Box, Tags, and Groups.

List of Guides

  • Filter your list by subject, owner, type, or even by a search term!
  • Create a simple list or a framed list

List of Databases from our A-Z list 

  • Filter by subject, database type, vendor, or by a search term!

Embed a Guide, Page, or Content Box 

  • Reuse guide content ANYWHERE
  • Control height and width from the widget create screen

Adding a Single FAQ to a LibGuide

To do this, you can create a LibAnswers Widget.

  1. Go to Admin > Widgets
  2. Name your widget (I called this government sources)
  3. In the left column, under Content select FAQ List
  4. In the right column under FAQ Entries Type, select Single full FAQ Entry and add the FAQ ID
  5. The FAQ topics and date will display under the FAQ title. If you want to hide this you’ll need to add the following in the Custom CSS box:     .s-la-faq-listing-meta { display: none; }
  6. Click save

LibAnswers Widget

Best Practices

SpringShare Training Best Practices for Images - Resources for images and icons with examples use cases.

It is important to be mindful of the images we add to our LibGuides.

Image rights - Be sure we have a right to use the image. Use only CC licensed or public domain images on your guide.

  • Images should be sourced and cited appropriately. NEVER use copyrighted images without permission.
  • Only include images that are relevant and add value. 
  • Free Image Resources
    • UnSplash.com:  Free high-resolution images published under the Creative Commons Zero license.
    • Pixaby.com:  Searchable high-res images, vector and art illustrations published under CCO license.
    • MorgueFile.com:  Free high-res stock images.
    • Canva Templates - Examples of LibCal templates, flyers, and other promotional materials easily created with a free Canva account.
    • Please read the licenses and TOS of each of the sites suggested above before downloading images.

Image size - The image should be resized before adding to SpringShare. 

  • The Image Manager should be used for adding images. Once you have found a useable image, use the Image Manager to add Alt Text, archive and allow for easy re-use.

Image type - Save your images as PNG (Portable Network Graphic). PNGs are a good general web format and will maintain any transparency in the image. Alternately use JPG or GIF. 

Image Naming Conventions

  • Descriptive and unique names (use "Library_Banner_Main" instead of "Banner_Home")
  • No spaces or special characters - these cause link problems, use a dash or underscore instead
  • Add a date on the end to ensure you don't overwrite an existing image. All images are stored in the same location, regardless of if you place it in a folder for organization, so save yourself some drama by being unique in your file naming. 

Accessibility

Springshare Help > Images - Don't copy and paste OR drag and drop images!

The IOT Library strives to make its website accessible in accordance with WCAG 2.0, ADA, Section 508, and other accessibility standards and guidelines. The following should be instituted when creating a LibGuide page:

Image Property Guidelines

Image Property Guidelines

Alternative Text

The use of alternative text should be used to describe images, including photographs, charts or screen captures. Use of alternative text ensures that image content is accessible to people with various disabilities since text descriptions are recognized by screen readers. Alternative texts can be added in the ALT Text field or alt= “ “. Additionally, alternative text allows images to be indexed by search engines.

Examples of alternative text fields in LibGuides:

Examples of alternative text fields in LibGuides:

Refer to the following checklist from WebAIM regarding Text Alternatives:

 
Success Criteria WebAIM’s Recommendations
Non-text Content
  • All images, form image buttons, and image map hot spots have appropriate, equivalent alternative text.
  • Images that do not convey content, are decorative, or contain content that is already conveyed in text are given null alt text (alt="") or implemented as CSS backgrounds. All linked images have descriptive alternative text.
  • Equivalent alternatives to complex images are provided in context or on a separate linked page.
  • Form buttons have a descriptive value.
  • Form inputs have associated text labels.
  • Embedded multimedia is identified via accessible text.
  • Frames and iframes are appropriately titled.
 

Source: https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist

For more information about alternative text: https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/

Additional resources for ensuring accessibility across LibGuides pages: https://training.springshare.com/libguides/accessibility

 

LIbA11y Guide to making your content accessible: https://www.liba11y.org/

Best Practices

Reuse Existing Link or Widget – Be sure to use this option and create once and reuse, rather than create a duplicate link or widget. 

Embed size:

Embed responsive YouTube video that will resize dependant on the learners device. http://embedresponsively.com/

Springshare Help:

How to add, reuse, and edit Link assets

How to add, reuse, and edit Media / Widget assets

Link to Video

Videos – Link

Note: You have an option to use the Link or Media/ Widget – See options and considerations below.

Link: Provide video title and description as shown below -

Video Link Example for Introduction to Financial Accounting

Published View:

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Embed Video - Widget

Media / Widget: Considerations – embedded videos in either widgets or rich text blocks will take a few seconds to load. The number of videos displayed will impact the page load.