Introduction

When building lists, Talis Aspire offers the ability to add a variety of different note types, to address different scenarios. A list editor may want to add either a Student Note or a Library Note to any item on a list, or they may wish to add an Internal Note to a whole list to provide added context. This article explains how these options work and the difference between them.

Student Note

A Student Note is simply an annotation on an individual list item, designed to give students some guidance about the item in question. This might be an instruction to read a specific chapter, a summary of the text in question, or some information about why this item is relevant to their studies.

A student note can be added from the action menu next to an item, if the user has the relevant permissions to do so:

This opens a text box where the note can be entered. The box supports up to 2000 characters, when the note is complete the user just needs to click 'Save'. The note can also be edited at any time by re-selecting the 'Note for students' option.

Once saved, the note appears on the list with a small mortar board icon and is visible to all users:

Library Note

A library note is similar to a student note and can be created from the action menu and selecting the 'Note for library' option; the library note also supports up to 2000 characters,

However, the library note is only visible to users who have editing permissions within Talis Aspire, so is invisible to students. The library note is designed to allow the list publisher to make requests to library staff when they are reviewing a list; this might include a request for additional copies, for an item to be scanned, or for a book to be moved to a particular collection. The library note is surfaced in the Reviews interface to be acted upon.

For those who can view it, the library note appears on the list with a small library icon:

Internal Note

An internal note differs from library notes and student notes in that it is used to add a note to a whole list rather than individual items. As its name suggests, the note is not intended for viewing by students, but can be used by list creators to communicate with library staff to provide additional context about the list they have made. An internal note can be added either when a list is first created, or at any time from the 'Edit List Details' menu (see below). Once saved, the note is visible both on the list itself and in the Reviews interface.

Viewing & Editing Notes in Reviews

When a list is sent for review, all of the different note types can be seen in the Reviews interface; librarians have told us that they often find the student note can also be a useful thing to see when making decisions about purchases or scanning.

Following user feedback, library staff now have the ability to edit student / library notes directly in Reviews. Some institutions have workflows which entail library staff editing these notes, and had previously told us that when they see student and library notes in the reviews section they could not edit them at that point; instead users needed to go into the list edit mode in another tab to make appropriate changes. Now they can simply click on 'Edit Note' from within the Reviews interface.

When a library user edits the note in Reviews, the 'Unpublished changes' button will appear on the list. To make the change live, you will need to republish the list. Notes may also be added from scratch, or deleted if required.

NOTE: If a list is published but has unpublished changes (ie the updates are invisible to a student), then any edits to notes made from the Reviews area will not display until the list is published again.