News site guidelines: Correspondents instructions

Contact the Editorial Team at:

news-editors-lib@mit.edu

Current team:

• Brigham Fay
• Stephanie Hartman
• Melissa Feiden

Who can post news?

• Most departments have one or more news correspondents who are tasked with gathering, writing, and posting their department's news and events. Find your department's correspondent
• If a unit doesn't have a designated correspondent, contact the Editorial Team.
• If you have any news-related questions (technical, photos, editorial, etc.), contact the Editorial Team.

What makes a good news story?

• Is it timely? The story introduces someone or something new, or is related to a current event, topic, time of year (e.g., time-sensitive announcements, key hires, holiday-related content, heritage months, Open Access Week)
• Will it help someone get something done? (e.g., new services, collections, or other resources)
• Does it reinforce an important message? The story relates to the Libraries' or Institute-wide priorities (e.g., open scholarship, climate change, AI, EDISJ)
• Is it unique to the Libraries or to MIT? (e.g., Distinctive Collections, hacks)
• Is it a human interest story? People like reading about people.

Constructing your news story

• Headlines: Make them brief and clear; sum up the story in few words
• Sub-heads: Short sentence, building on the headline; provide more details to draw the reader into the story
• Lede: The first paragraph (called the “lede” or “lead”) should succinctly answer “who, what, when, where, and how.” See 5 tips for writing good ledes.
• Front-load the information: Readers will scan your news story; don’t expect them to read the entire thing. The most important information should go at the top of the story.

• Tone: Professional, friendly, helpful, not too formal or academic. Avoid using library jargon.
• Audience: Write with a broad audience in mind; your news story may reach well beyond MIT. Some stories might have a specific audience, such as MIT students. In that case, make it clear in your headline or copy. 
• Links:
  • Make email addresses and URLs clickable.
  • Don't paste URLs into the text of post or say "click here." Don't say "visit http://libraries.mit.edu"; say "visit the MIT Libraries."
  • Create links to any libraries mentioned (only need to do this once per post).
• Style: Refer to: MIT Libraries’ house style, MIT editorial guide, and AP style
  • Titles: Use sentence case for all headlines and subheads
  • Use Oxford (or serial) commas (Ex: apples, bananas, and grapes)
  • Use ampersands (&) only when space is limited (such as a story title that must fit on the homepage) or when it is part of an official name (Ex: AT&T). Otherwise, spell out "and."
• Provide a contact for more information, if appropriate.

1. Log into the news site  (if you're off-campus, you'll need to download and connect through VPN first)
2. Click on "Posts", then "Add New."
3. Enter the title and subtitle (see headline and sub-head guidelines above).
4. Write the body text of the post.
5. Insert images via the "Add Media" button. (see Image section below for complete details). 
6. Format appropriately. Remember formatting standards and "Writing for the Web" guidelines. 
7. Select categories. "All news" should always remain checked. Try to limit your selection to one or two categories.
8. Do not use the "tag" field unless instructed by editorial team.
9. Mark if urgent (use for time-sensitive posts).
10. Notes for the editorial team -- use this field for anything you need to tell us.
11. Save the post as a draft, make any necessary updates, then send for review.
    - Save as Draft - come back to it later
    - Preview - opens a new tab with a preview of how it will look
    - Submit for review - will send your post to the editorial team.

Before Creating Your Event

• Is registration required? If so, set up a LibCal or Eventbrite registration (you’ll need the link)

Creating Your Event

1) Log into calendar.mit.edu

2) Hover over your profile pic in upper right, and click on “Calendar Admin”

3) Under “Events” tab on the left, click on “Add Event”

4) Fill in the appropriate fields. Please note:

• Date: Make sure to click “Add above to schedule” to confirm the date(s)
• Location: If it's an MIT campus location, begin typing "Building." You can find the Building # in the drop-down to add a campus map link
• Classification: Events marked as "Exhibits" will not be pulled into the Libraries website (to avoid creating a new event for every day the exhibit is open)
• Departments: Select MIT Libraries -- this must be selected for it to appear on the Libraries' website
• Additional Landing Page Details: these are all optional
• Tickets & Registration: If registration is required, add link (such as LibCal or Eventbrite). We suggest you also include it in the description as a hyperlink.
• Visibility: Select "Public"

5) Save changes

6) Email Brigham at brighamf@mit.edu to say that you have entered an event

• If it is urgent, please specify. 
• If you’re having trouble finding an image or are concerned how it may crop, include that in your email.
• If an event is co-sponsored and needs to be assigned to more than one DLC (see "Co-Sponsored Events" below), indicate that in your email.

7) If needed, you can edit an event after it’s published. Go to the event page; in the lower right, there is a box called “Admin” with a button called “Admin Event Editor.” Click on that and edit fields as needed.

Co-Sponsored Events
If an event is co-sponsored and should be assigned to another DLC in addition to the Libraries in the calendar, please indicate that when emailing Brigham in step #6 above so that we can make the request from calendar administrators. Please do this even if another DLC is adding the event to the calendar; we will need the Libraries to be added by administrators so that we can pull the event into the Libraries' website.

Accessibility Accommodations

• Use language that demonstrates that we actively want people to participate and that we are happily willing to help make that happen. We would appreciate everyone’s help in incorporating this language into our templates and norms.
• Disability Services may require up to 2 weeks to provide special access accommodations; you may want to add a date to your wording.
• Sample wording:
  • Accessibility: Your participation makes this program better. Please email [email address] by [date] if you require an accommodation in order to join us.

Resources for MIT Events Calendar

• IS&T Knowledge Base​
• MIT Events Calendar online course
• Email questions to calendar@mit.edu

What is a spotlight?
A spotlight can be used for to highlight an existing page or to feature content that doesn't warrant its own story. You provide a title and a link. No need to worry about an image. 

The different types of spotlights are:

• Check it out (a catch-all for something you want to highlight)
• Featured collection
• Featured exhibit 
• Featured service
• Featured story -- draw attention to a story on MIT News or other non-Libraries site
• In the Media -- similar to the above
• Featured video
• Tip
• Update (often used for closures or changes in hours with a link to the hours page)

How to post a spotlight:

1. Go to dashboard
2. Select "Spotlight" - add new
3. Text -- say everything you need to say in one line, and say it well. Spotlights should be around 60 characters. Use a character counting tool like LetterCount to make your life easier.
4. Select the spotlight "type"
5. Add the link that this spotlight will link out to -- this is required. 
6. If urgent (maybe in the case of hours or a closure) check the box.
7. Add any notes for the editors
8. Submit for review

Due to space and wrapping reasons we may need to edit your line of text a bit. 

Our news site is image intensive. It is important to have a quality image for every post.

Where to find images:

1. See the Marketing Team's Image Resource List.
2. Make sure you have permission to use an image, or that it's in the public domain. If you need to add a photo credit, use the image caption field.
3. If you want/need to use a logo in your post - look for a high quality copy. You don't need to follow the dimension criteria below as we likely won't be able to use it on the "grid" view page. 
4. If you have trouble finding an image, describe what you are looking for in "notes to editorial team" and we'll try to help!

Before you upload your image(s):

Huge images aren't good for the site. Use a basic image editing program ("Paint" on PCs, "Preview" on Macs) to resize (and rename) your image if it is large. 

1. For the various uses on the main news page we (the editorial team) need an image at least 700 x 300. These dimensions will obviously vary depending on whether your image has a horizontal or vertical orientation. 
2. Save your image with a meaningful file name. Make it concise, use all lowercase & dashes, no spaces or underscores. 
3. Save your image as a JPGs (photos) or PNGs (line drawings, logos).
4. Once resized your file size should be under 500 kBs. 

Uploading images: 

Click the button for "Add Media" & upload a new image, or select an existing image from the Media Library. Your image should already have a meaningful filename & and be a good file size - if not, stop, see above and start again.

See below for the eleven easy steps for a quality upload!

If you have more than one image to add, do this for each image. Once images are in place you can make sure they are aligning properly and text is wrapping/flowing ok.

Any problems or questions - let us know!