Planning, creating, and managing quality web content isn’t as easy as it might seem. It’s hard work to make things simple. Contact the Website Development Committee if you have questions, feedback, or need help.
One of the best ways to ensure that our website is user-friendly is to follow industry best practices, keep the content focused on key user tasks, and keep our content up-to-date.
We want the content for our websites, social media, marketing pieces, and other materials to be reliable, understandable, and friendly.
Anyone writing content for the web, social media, marketing, and other public-facing materials (emails, signage) at UAlbany Libraries may use this guide. It should be used when writing content for:
Library website (services pages, about pages, University Library's web page, Dewey Graduate Library's web page, etc.)
Library social media accounts
Subject, course, and topic research guides (LibGuides)
LibAnswers FAQs
We would like to thank the University of Illinois Library's Website Style Guides and Project Documentation, Duke University's Web Writing Style Guide, The University of Arizona's Editorial Style Guide, the MailChimp style guide, and the UConn Library's LibGuides Standards and Best Practices for the open licensing of their content, which we used to build this resource. Some of the content of this guide was taken, with permission, from Boston College Libraries' LibGuides Standards and Best Practices, and Temple University Editorial Guidelines which is largely based on the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook.
Aderinokun, I. (2015). The Accessibility Cheatsheet. bitsofcode. https://bitsofco.de/the-accessibility-cheatsheet/
Blakiston, R. (2017) Writing Effectively in Print and on the Web : a Practical Guide for Librarians. Lanham. Rowman & Littlefield. Print.
Froke, P., and Bajak, F. (2020) The Associated Press Stylebook : 2020-2022. 55th edition. New York: Basic Books. Print.
Hampton Haynes, E. (3 Mar. 2019) Library Jargon. ACRLog.
Mugridge, R. (2019). University at Albany Libraries Style Guide. Internal document: unpublished draft.
Nielsen, J., & Kaley, A. (2020). Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/avoid-pdf-for-on-screen-reading/
Nielsen, J., & Kaley, A. (2020). PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/pdf-unfit-for-human-consumption/
Office of Communications and Marketing. (2020) The Editorial Style Guide. University at Albany. Web. https://www.albany.edu/communicationsmarketing/
Office of Communications and Marketing. (2020) Quick Reference Style Guide. University at Albany. Web. https://www.albany.edu/communicationsmarketing/
Schade, A. (2014). Video Usability. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/video-usability/
The Chicago Manual of Style. (2017) Seventeenth edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Web.
University at Albany. (2021) UAlbany Brand and Marketing Guidelines Visual Identity Standards Manual. Web. https://www.albany.edu/communicationsmarketing/
