Reading lists: a guide for academics: Talis Aspire

1. We prioritise e-content (e-books and if not available for purchase, scanned chapters) to give students the best possible experience.
2. Items should be assigned an importance label.
   • Essential reading = the core text that all students are expected to use. These must be available electronically to satisfy student access needs.
   • Recommended and Optional = additional reading, with most items in a long list labelled Optional, and anything you want to highlight as particularly important labelled Recommended.
3. Lists should be kept up to date.
4. Lists should be short and divided into sections so they are easy to use (e.g. ~20 items max, or ~5 in weekly readings).
5. Talis Aspire should be used to create and access reading lists. This is available from the Reading List tab in each unit in Brightspace.

The online reading list software used by the Library is called Talis Aspire. It's integrated into Brightspace and should be used by every unit leader to provide a central set of information sources to support the independent learning of the students taking their unit.

Unit leaders can manage the content of their online reading list through Talis Aspire by:

• Adding and removing items
• Requesting that the library purchase books, journals, DVDS or other types of resources
• Requesting digitised content, i.e. scanned copies of book chapters / journal articles
• Structuring recommendations by week or theme
• Enhancing recommendations with annotation
• Tracking use of items

The Library can keep track of reading list items through this system to make sure there is sufficient access to resources to meet demand across all lists.