Style Guidelines

Described below is the standard style we would like to use on the News Division Web site.

For page titles, we recommend using this format:

<title>Title of the Page. SLA News Division Web Site.</title>

Page titles are important because they appear as the heading in search engine results, as identifiers in bookmark files, and in the top of people's browser windows. Having a good page title will also help a search engine find the page. Some search engines ignore untitled pages. Search sometime for page titles that are generated by HTML editors, like "GoLive! CyberStudio," in the page title. You'll be amazed at how many pages are out there without appropriate page titles.

Here is the code for linking to the stylesheet:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://ibiblio.org/slanews/sland.css">

If you use a shorter form of the URL, like just ../sland.css, note that you will need to adjust the "../" before sland.css depending on how many directory levels down you are. For two directories, use "../../sland.css," etc.

We are not currently using any specific kind of metadata for this Web site. If you would like to put metadata on your pages, please feel free to do so.

For the background, links, and text color, include this code:

        <body bgcolor="#ffffff" link="#000000" vlink="#008080" alink="#008000">

       Here is what the above code means:
        The body should be white: #ffffff
        Hyperlinks should have this color: #000000
        Visited hyperlinks should have this color: #008080
        Active hyperlinks should have thiscolor: #008000

Okay, well, you don't necessarily have to use white (#ffffff) as your background color or the other colors as link and text colors, but it is a good idea to specify colors. For more on colors, see this palette of Web-safe colors with hexidecimal (the string of six letters and numbers) codes: http://www.lynda.com/hexh.html.

At the bottom of the page, use a horizontal line that is 90% of the page. Use this code: <hr width="90%">

Beneath the horizontal line, add:

Links to the homepage and the top page of the section the page is in, like this:

<p align="center"><b><a href="aboutsite.htm">About this Web Site</a></b><br>
<a href="../index.html" target="_parent"><b>SLA News Division Home</b></a></p>

It is very important to include the target="_parent" tag or a similar tag in any links to the homepage. When the homepage opens, it automatically pulls the frames onto the page. If you use the link from a page that is framed, then you'll end up with two sets of frames instead of one. Using target=_parent" or target="_top" will solve that problem.

Next, add Last Updated: and the date of the last update: mm/dd/yy (in italic)
Name of person maintaining that page and that person's e-mail address, hyperlinking the e-mail address.

Here's the code:
<p><i>Last Updated: 08/26/02</i><br>
Amy Disch<br>
<a href="mailto:newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com">newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com</a>

All of the above together will appear on the screen like:


About this Web Site
SLA News Division Home

Last Updated: 08/26/02
Amy Disch
Send comments or suggestions to newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com

Feel free to put additional notes in the footer of the page, like "This page was originally created by Carolyn Edds, 5/18/01."

For links outside of the News Division Web site, please include the tag target="_window" in the link tag.

<a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews" target="_window">http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/</a>

That tag tells the browser to open the site in a new window. It is important to use on sites with frames for two main reasons: it prevents someone else's site from opening in the News Division frames and it preserves someone's place in the site if they want to come back to where they were. (Using the back button often puts the person back to the first page of the site, not the last page they were on because of the way frames work.) If you are staunchly against having someone's browser open a new window, an alternate tag would be target="_top".

Naming files is rather important because some systems, like the ibiblio server, are case sensitive and others do not handle spaces in file names. Please remove spaces from the file names and keep all the letters lowercase. Short file names are still great.

Never underestimate the importance of navigation. If the page you're working on is out of its frame, will people still be able to get back to where they were easily? Make sure the page links back to where people probably came from to find it. The navigation scheme common to the bottom of the pages also lets people know where they are on the site. That can also be quite important.

REMEMBER: If you are updating an existing page on the Web site and are going to upload it, too, download it from the Web site first, make a copy as a backup, and then update a second copy of the downloaded file to upload when you are done. If you edit the existing file on your computer and someone else had edited that file in the meantime on the Web site, you will overwrite any changes made by that person. It's also good to have a backup copy of the original in case there are any problems. Be sure to check your page on the Web site when you are finished just to make sure everything's okay.

Also, after updating your page, update this file with your update: whats_new.htm. Do not overwrite other updates with your update or addition.

If you created a new page for the site, please update the site index, as well. It's organized by section of the Web site, so list your page under whatever folder you put it in. (i.e. If you put it in the internet section, list it in the Internet list on the site index.)

Additional HTML resources:

Jessica Baumgart taught HTML to several classes of library science students a few years ago. Basic and advanced HTML tutorials are available on her Web site at: http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.jkbaumg/presentations/. (Please don't laugh at the rest of her Web site. She spends most of her spare time working on the News Division site instead of her own.)

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative: http://dublincore.org/

HTML: Resources on the Web: http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/Memorial/htmlhelp.htm

HTML codes for special characters: http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/special_characters/

Library Instruction: Web Page Development Resources: http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/Instruction/webdev.htm

Link checker from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): http://validator.w3.org/checklink.

216 web safe colors via "The Browser Safe Color Palette" by Lynda Weinman. Hexadecimal codes and colors: http://www.lynda.com/hexh.html

WebDesignHelper: http://www.WebDesignHelper.co.uk/

World Wide Web Consotium's HyperText Markup Language Home Page: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

World Wide Web Consortium's Cascading Style Sheets: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/


About this Web Site
SLA News Division Home

Last updated: 06/15/06
Amy Disch
newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com