If you are new to the LibGuides software, we encourage you read and/or watch the following general resources (created by Springshare) prior to using the system. If you prefer hands-on training, contact us at librarywebservices@furman.edu.

Guide Layout

There are 2 primary choices of layout:

• For tabbed navigation: select "Use system default template".
• For side navigation: select "Furman Side-Nav Layout".

When creating Friendly URLs, keep in mind that there are 2 levels of Friendly URLs: guide level and page level. Pages inherit a base URL from their parent guide.  So a page on a guide that has a Friendly URL of /citing will have its own URL added, giving a page level URL like /citing/apa.  URLs are important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  They're also critical to our ability to make sense of Google Analytics.

General Content Guides and Pages

• Guide Name: descriptive, unique, and brief
  • use title case and spaces
  • page names should be standardized where appropriate (e.g., Books, Articles, Citing)
  • Example: Accessibility Statement
• Guide Friendly URL: short and descriptive
  • separate words with hyphens
  • Example: /library/accessibility

Subject Guides

• Guide Name: *Department Name
  • precede name with an asterisk (no space)
  • use title case and spaces
  • Example: *Asian Studies
• Guide Friendly URL: department-name
  • all lower case, no spaces
  • separate words with hyphens
  • Example /asian-studies

FYW Course Guides

• Guide Name: FYW: Course Title - Professor's Last Name
  • use title case and spaces
  • Example: FYW: Medicine, Morality, & Culture - Epright
• Guide Friendly URL: fyw##professorlastname.
  • Example: /fyw1120-epright

Non-FYW Course Guides

• Guide Name: 3lettercoursecode ####: Course Title - Professor's Last Name
  • use the 3 letter codes from Furman's catalog search page, under the "Show prefix list" link
  • use title case and spaces
  • Example: SUS 120: Sustainability Science - Beymer-Farris
• Guide Friendly URL: 3lettercoursecode###professor'slastname
  • Example: /sus120-beymer-farris

LibGuides Guide Types are defined by Springshare. These are our local recommendations for assigning types to guides.  Implementing these recommended types facilitates organizing, viewing, and sorting on the backend of LibGuides and in some cases are used to trigger displays of certain guides via widgets.

General Purpose

• Provide general information on services, collections, or programs. 
• Most guides will use this type.

Course Guide

• Created for specific classes.
• All course guides should use this type.
• FYW guides should also be added to the “First Year Seminars” Group.

Topic Guide

• Created to support research on a specific topic (other than a LibGuides subject).
• Examples include: Civil War Digital Collections or Japanese Dictionaries.

Subject Guide

• Created for “subjects” we define in LibGuides.
• Only guides focused on our LibGuides subjects should use this type (see also Topic Guides).

Internal Guide

• Intended for library employees (including student assistants).
• Not intended to be used by the public.
• These guides are only publicly available to users who know their URLs.
• They do not appear in LibGuides guide lists and will only display in LibGuides search results if you are logged into LibGuides.

Template Guide

• Intended for library employees (including student assistants).
• These guides are only publicly available to users who know their URLs.
• They do not appear in LibGuides guide lists and never display in LibGuides search results.

You may need to assign your guide to one of the following groups. Some groups, like the Music, Science, or SC&A groups affect the template (e.g., header, footer, and navigation links), design, and layout of the guide. Some groups are only used facilitate organizing, viewing, and sorting on the backend of LibGuides, or some cases, to trigger displays of certain guides via widgets. General course guides, subject guides, topic guides, and guides that are specific to Duke Library should not be explicitly assigned to a group; those guides will remain in the default group, which uses the James B. Duke Library template.

• Database Guides
  • All guides related to databases should be in this group.
• Digital Collections Center
  • All content on the Digital Collections Center website should be in this group.
• Digital Collections Splash Pages
  • This group is reserved for digital collections splash pages.
• First Year Seminars
  • ​​​​​​​All guides for FYW courses should be in this group.
• Maxwell Music Library
  • ​​​​​​​All content on the Music Library website should be in this group.
• May Experience
  • ​​​​​​​All guides for MayX courses should be in this group.
• Sanders Science Library
  • ​​​​​​​All content on the Sanders Science Library website should be in this group.
• Special Collections & Archives
  • ​​​​​​​All content on the Special Collections website should be in this group.
• Test Guides
  • ​​​​​​​All test guides, sandbox guides, etc., should be in this group.