Skip to Main Content
Lansing Community College Library

LibGuides for Library Staff: Maintain

Guidelines for library staff for creating and maintaining research guides.

How to Keep Your Guide Shiny and New

Puppy running on grass with its tongue hanging out.

Your new guide is like a new puppy! But what about after it has been around a while?

Below are some ideas for continuously improving your guide after it has been published.

Is the information up to date?

  • Check links with the LibGuides Link Checker or manually check links to make sure the pages you are linking to are still relevant.  Can any new research databases, books, e-books, or videos be added? Should any resources be removed?

Is the most important information highlighted?

Imagine you have 5 minutes with a student who stops by the Reference Desk. Make sure that information is on the first page of the guide.

How is your guide being used?

Check usage statistics. Can any pages or links be eliminated? Similar to weeding books, removing what is not being used allows the "good stuff" to stand out and be seen. Less is more. If you add a new tab, box or link, remove one as well.

Is your guide written for the web?

Put the Most Important Content First

Try resizing your browser to show how the guide looks if the content is displayed in one column. This shows you how the guide looks from a mobile device or even on a Desktop computer when the browser is minized. The most important content should be listed first.

View of English 122 guide in one column