Best practice for reading lists

Consider the length of your list and make reading requirements achievable. It is onerous to maintain a list of hundreds of items and daunting for students to navigate. Ensure all included items are relevant. Encourage students to use their digital literacy skills to search for further material.  We have:

• Information on search techniques
• Subject guides

The significance of the resource should be indicated clearly. The Talis Aspire reading list system allows you to clearly indicate this by setting the Importance, as well as providing access to any Further resources.

A well structured list will guide student learning. Organise your learning resources by week or topic. If you have a course reader, be clear in the course profile about which readings it contains.

Review your reading lists each semester and remove items no longer relevant. Ensure the most recent edition of a title is used. If an older edition is used, add a note to say why. Edit and publish your course reading list eight weeks prior to the start of the semester so we can place orders for any new materials.

The Library has an e-preferred policy for learning resources, meaning we acquire books, journals and other resources in electronic format wherever possible. Choose items that are readily available. Out of print material can be difficult for the Library and students to source.

Ebook content is provided in a range of ways and it can be limited in terms of: 

• simultaneous user access eg. three at a time
• how many uses can be purchased eg. 240. (Once the purchased number has been exhausted, more must be purchased. This can temporarily limit access and restrict its availability.)
• download and printing capacity.

Access options can also vary within providers eg. Proquest. Each ebook needs to be checked individually.

Before adding an ebook to your reading list:

• Check the number of users who can access it.
• Investigate download and printing capacity.

Number of users

To check:

1. Search for the ebook in the Library Search. (If it isn’t available, check with the Librarian Team.)
2. Click Show License in the detailed search result to see the Concurrent User information. This will show Unlimited or the user limit number.

The License terms showing number of users under Concurrent User. It is Unlimited for this resource.

This License terms show the concurrent users are limited to 15 for this resource.

Downloads

The amount of an ebook that can be downloaded may be limited and the amount can vary between titles and providers.

Check the download and printing capacity by:

1. Locate the ebook in the Library search.
2. Go to the ebook on the provider's website.
3. Find the Availability information to check how many pages you can download or print and  whether downloads will expire.

The Availability information will show the access available to an ebook.

Learn more about using ebooks.

Select learning resources for your course outlines other key issues to consider when selecting learning resources.

For further assistance, contact the Librarian Team.