SharePoint Public Library: Best Practices

Each department and college at Northwest University has a Public Library SharePoint Site accessible through the Administrative tab of its parent Hub Site. Content Published in our Public Library Sites can be Shared with people outside of NU without requiring them to be signed in.


Access Your Departmental Public Library

Important: The Public Library site itself is not publicly browsable by people outside its respective employees. Rather than copying the web address of the Public Library or an opened file, use the Share or Copy Link options.

  1. Go to the Northwest University Hub SharePoint Site and sign in with your NU credentials, if necessary.
  2. Use the Colleges & Offices menu within the light blue bar to navigate to your department.
  3. If you can find the library but cannot access it, email help@northwestu.edu for assistance.

Publish Files Before Sharing

SharePoint saves edits as draft versions (e.g., 0.1, 1.1, etc.). Publishing creates a major version (e.g.,1.0 or 2.0), indicating that the file is ready to be shared with others. To Publish a file:

  1. Select the file.
  2. Select More Actions [···] > More > Publish / Republish. (You may need to use the Publish button in the command bar if it’s not listed within More.)
  3. Optionally, add a comment, then select Publish or OK.

Important: Avoid selecting Check Out unless you need to lock a file while editing it. If you check out a file, you must check it back in to save your changes and allow others to access the latest version.

When to Use the Public Library

Use your departmental Public Library when you need to:

  • Share files without requiring an NU sign-in. NU employees and students can access Published and Shared files without using their NU credentials.
  • ·Share with external audiences. Make documents available to parents, prospective students, and other individuals outside NU.
  • Link documents from Eagle. Store files in the Public Library and link to them from your departmental website. When you update and Republish a document, the existing link remains valid, so you don’t need to update the website link.

Share a File

Before sharing, make sure the file has been Published.

  1. Select the file.
  2. Select More Actions [···] > Copy link [🔗].
  3. Check the link permissions. The default should be Anyone with the link and Can view.
  4. If access is restricted, (e.g., Only people added to the file have access), select Change > Anyone.
  5. Copy the link and share it through an Eagle website, email, or other appropriate channel.

Before sharing: Confirm that the file is intended for external access and contains no confidential, sensitive, or restricted information. Anyone with the link may view the file, so share it thoughtfully.

Sources:

Publish or unpublish a version of a file

Share SharePoint files or folders