Strategy: Naming and Organizing Folders and Items
Whether your library has one location or many, if you’re planning to create a lot of promotional items in LibraryAware (and we hope you do!), you may want to plan ahead to keep your account easy to search and maintain. Here are some best practices and tips for setting up your account page(s).
- Create folders before you invite others to start using LibraryAware. That helps guide people to create new items in the correct place.
Remember, you are naming folders, not creating items at this point. The name should represent the category or commonality of all items inside the folder. For example, a folder might be named Adult Programs, not Knitting Class.
Also, be specific when naming items. Make that word specific to your folder. For example, if most of your items will be flyers, instead of naming the item “Flyer for Guitar Class,” name it “Guitar Class Flyer.” Items inside the folder will be automatically displayed by most recently modified, but you click on the modified button to change it to display alphabetically or date created.
Some other tips for naming folders and items:
- If you expect to be making a lot of similarly-named folders in a certain category, add the year to the name. And at the beginning of the new year, archive those old folders. Create a new folder with the same name but the new year. That will keep your folder list clear.
- If you want to make different types of items using the same records and information (reusables) and are working in the Classic Editor, create a folder to include all those items, such as “Romance Genre Materials.” Included might be bookmarks, brochures, emails and widget slides that all use the same book records and event information. (Note: Reusables are not used in the Drag & Drop Editor.)
- Instruct users to find the folder that best fits the category of the item they want to make. Then in that folder, select Create Item to begin making the item.
- Consider asking users to use only existing folders, rather than create new folders. If users don’t see a folder that fits their needs, let them know who to contact to set up a new folder. It's easier to keep consistent naming conventions with folders, when you have one main user creating them.
- Be sure to archive folders when the season or event is over. That will clear it from your main folders list page, but keep it in the archived section in case you need it again.