Standards & Best Practices for LibGuides at YU

An authentic pedagogy cannot make the universal claim that there is one correct and superior way of doing something. In our instructional design, just as in our teaching of information literacy, we must take into account the learners and their context. There is room for flexibility, variation, and experimentation to better serve our learners.

However, we should take every step we can to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our guides, make them as accessible and inclusive as possible, and strive for them to provide a cohesive experience. In this guide, you will find recommendations to better achieve all of this.

• Confirming guides have a purpose and are executing that purpose well.
• Side-navigation for all guides that have multiple pages.
• Broken links updated / removed.
• Exhaustive lists edited / broken up.
• Superfluous content made concise.
• Guides made accessible.
• Guides checked for cellphone formatting.
• Images reviewed / updated.
• Profile boxes removed if multiple librarians can be contacted.
• Establishing a habit of continually maintaining and updating one's guides.
• Guides considered for sunsetting.

Disclaimer: This guide is not an example of what one should emulate in their own guides as the audience for this guide are exclusively librarians, hence there is a level of detail that would be overkill for any and all library users.