Emory's LibGuide on LibGuides: Best Practices & Guidelines for Creating and Maintaining LibGuides

Database assets and link assets are ideal for adding web links to your guides, since they can be reused over and over and provide statistics on the number clicks.  And, of course, If broken, they only need to be fixed just once at the asset level.  When adding a link, be sure to check the "Reuse Existing Link" to see if someone has already added it.  Remember, you can use an asset, and still choose to edit the description that appears on your guide.

When highlighting databases, use the database assets repository and not a list of links in a Rich Text Box. Your lists should emphasize the best bets for research not just a long list of resources, and databases should be ordered by relevance (rather than alphabetically.)

Using the database assets repository ensures that the basic information and link to the database is regularly maintained. If the database link changes, for example, the Electronic and Continuing Resources (ECR) team updates the database asset for us. If you have added a link to the database in your text, that link will break. Each of us is responsible for any links we create in the copy of his or her LibGuides.

It's easy to add database assets to your guide. Click on the Add / Reorder button at the bottom of a box:

Once you've done that, you'll see a dialog box open. Type the name (or at least the first three letters of the name) in the box to search for the asset you need:

Select the database from the list:

The next pop-up allows you to set the preferences for how the database asset will appear in your guide.

Every database has a stock description (1). If you would like to have a customized description that appears only in this location on this one guide, you may enter that in the custom description box (2). You can also choose how the description is displayed.  You can include a brief description of the link, saving a stock description with the option of using a custom description for unique instances when necessary. The information can be shown by default, or hidden until the user mouses over or clicks on an information icon.

If you want the database asset to appear at the top of the box, or in between specific assets -- for example, adding a database to an existing list and organizing by alphabetical order -- you can do that using the Position drop-down menu (3).

ECR is responsible for adding and maintaining all of our databases in LibGuides. If you need assistance, send a message to them via listserv.

It is recommended that links pop-up in a new window.  When creating a link, click the Target tab to choose Open in New Window.