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Loyola Libraries Chicago: Metaguide

These guidelines support the University Libraries’ website migration to LibGuides, and our Content Reviews going forward. It outlines processes and best practices for content management in our distributed authorship model. Staff, department heads, and contributors are encouraged to follow these guidelines to ensure our content is user-focused and aligned with other content in our web presence.

Overview & Objectives

Purpose

• Provide practical steps to create, update, edit, combine, or de-accession content effectively.

Key Goals

• Enhance user experience through clear, intuitive navigation and content structure.
• Ensure content reflects our personas (undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, staff, alumni, etc.) and meets accessibility standards (WCAG 2.2).
• Maintain a consistent style in line with our Library Style Guide.
• Empower distributed authorship while maintaining centralized oversight for quality and consistency.

Todo

Consider merging

• Research Guides: Policies and Guidelines: Creation, Editing, & Removal Policies

Overall Strategy

Before diving into individual guide editing, take a step back and consider all of your Guides in context.

Consider Your Users

• Think about which users depend on your Guides, or who might not know about them but who might nevertheless be interested.  Think about them as if they were real people with identities: give them names and needs.
• The Library-wide personas may help with this, and may provide inspiration, but they may not be a perfect fit for your content: feel free to adapt them accordingly, or come up with (less-elaborate) ones on your own.

Identify Broad Content Needs

• Before looking at particular Guides, write down what content would be most useful for your users overall.  What might a concise yet comprehensive group of Guides look like?  List the Guides your users might expect.
• Compare this list with an actual list of your Guides.  How do they differ?

Identify Overlapping Guides

• Identify sets of Guides that cover similar topics or serve overlapping audiences.
• Assess if certain Guides should be merged or clearly differentiated.

Identify the Guide’s Purpose

• Who is the intended audience (e.g., undergraduates, graduate students, faculty)?
• Does the guide address relevant use cases and personas?

Content Audit

• List all existing guides by category (e.g., liaison units, courses, subjects).
• Identify guides that are outdated, duplicated, or no longer useful.

Determine Structure

• Confirm the guide isn’t too complex (ideally no more than two levels of hierarchy, with three levels allowed only in unusual cases).
• Check if page titles accurately reflect content.