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LibGuide Car Wash Sandbox

This guide has workshop materials and activities from the Summer 2024 LibGuides Skill Refresh Workshop (the LibGuide Car Wash).

Practical Skills

This unit is designed to give you practice

  • Signing in to LibGuides
  • Creating pages and boxes, and then populating them with content (assets)
  • Reusing (mapping) LibGuide content

Unit Instructions:

In Unit 3 you get to practice making content in LibGuides. When you're done, you'll have your own "sandbox" page where you experiment with LibGuide content design. 

  1. Review the videos, images, and text in the LibGuide How to Create and Reuse Content box. This box has 3 tabs with instructions on how to create different types of LibGuide content: Sign In, Make Pages, and  Creating and Reusing Content. Reference the instructions in these tabs to create your sandbox page. 
  2. Create a subpage of this guide and make your first name the title of the page.
  3. Map a box from the LibGuides Repository Guide
  4. Create a new box. In the new box:
    1. Add 1 database asset
    2. Reuse (map) 1 media widget (video) asset 
    3. Add a Rich text/HTML to the box, and write a brief description of the content you added to the box (the database and mapped video). 
    4. Optional: Experiment with further customizations-- add other assets, mapped boxes, and text to make your page your own!

How to Create and Reuse Content

Practice Signing in to LibGuides

  1. Open the Library homepage: https://uwm.edu/libraries/, then click on Research and Course Guides located below the Search@UW search bar.
  2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on "Log in to LibApps" link
    Bottom of LibGuides by Subject directory with Log in to LibApps highlighted with a purple rectangle
     
  3. Follow the prompts to sign in with your ePanther ID and password. This will take you to the LibGuides Dashboard.
  4. Go to the LibGuides Shortcuts box in the center of the page, and select this guide-- UWM LibGuide Editor Training-- from the drop-down menu. If you do not see it listed, you can search by the LibGuide title. You can only see guides that you own or have editing permissions for. The LibGuides Shortcuts Box is also where you would go to create a new guide.*

*Editor-level accounts (what most interns have) cannot create LibGuides from scratch. 

Create a Sub-page to the Sandbox page of this Guide

  1. Sign in to LibGuides in a different tab
  2. Open the LibGuides Training Guide from the LibGuides DashboardLibGuides Shortcuts box with a search for "training" in the Edit Existing Guide dropdown menu
  3. Click the Add Page button (below the blue navigation buttons on the left, look for the +).
    Add page button at the bottom of the navigation panel on the left side of the screen
  4. When the new page dialog box opens:
    • Name the page after yourself.
    • Use the Position dropdown to make your new page a subpage of the Sandbox tab.
    • Save & Close
      Add page options drop down: Subpage of Sandbox page

This subpage is your LibGuides sandbox where you can practice and explore creating LibGuide content.  

Adding and Creating Content

  • To add a box, click on the blue Add Box link at the bottom of each column of a LibGuide page. 
  • To add an asset or reorder the assets in a box, click on the Add/Reorder dropdown menu in the bottom right corner of a LibGuide Box. Then choose the asset type from the options listed OR choose Reorder Content and drag your assets to rearrange them. 
    • Tip: Rich Text/HTML allows you to add text and images to a LibGuide box. 
  • To edit an asset you have already added, click on the edit icon located in the bottom right corner of the asset. This icon looks like a pencil in a box. 

Bottom of a LibGuide box with options to Add/Reorder assets, Add a box, and Edit an Asset highlighted

Re-Using Content

The more content there is, the harder it is to ensure LibGuides are accessible, useable, and up-to-date. Maintaining LibGuides starts with making strategic choices during the design process like mapping (reusing) boxes, videos, links, books, and other assets whenever possible. 

Tips for Reusing Content:
  • Before creating a new link, book, Media Widget (video), or instructional content, review the content in the LibGuides Repository Guide
    • Media Widgets (videos) should almost always be reused instead of created as new asset
    • There is no option to reuse a Database asset-- all database assets are mapped from the A-Z list automatically. 
  • When you map content, choose content from the Assets list or the LibGuides Repository Guide. 
  • Add a custom description to book, link, and database assets you reuse