Due to yesterday’s Cloudflare outage, links to CLA digitised readings via readinglists@ucl were temporarily unavailable.

new TLS owl postcard

TLS has liaised with the CLA, and they have confirmed that a resolution to this issue has been found and a fix deployed.
However, if you continue to experience problems, do get in touch with us at readinglists@ucl.ac.uk and we will contact the CLA on your behalf.

Heads up! Talis is rolling out a brand-new bookmarking workflow for all users starting Monday, 3rd November 2025.

New owl postcard

It’s faster, and hopefully easier to use, and designed to enhance your bookmarking experience. The old “classic” workflow will still be around until early January 2026, and is available from the preview screen, but we recommend switching over now to get familiar with the new setup.

Want to see it in action? We’ve updated our reading lists libguides to reflect these new changes :
https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/readinglists/using-bookmarking-button#s-lg-box-wrapper-19823317

What’s new compared to Classic ?

readinglists@ucl preview page of new bookmarking workflow

Some differences :

• Preview Screen Upgrade: Once you have clicked on the bookmarking button, you will be taken to a  preview screen showing all metadata side-by-side. No more scrolling like in Classic.
• One-Click Bookmarking: No need to choose between “Create” or “Create and Add to List.” Just hit “Save to MyBookmarks”—it does both! You’ll still use follow-up screens to add notes, choose a list, and set item position.
• Metadata Capture: For electronic resources, the preview screen now shows key details like DOI, URL, and view online links on the preview screen.
• Editing an item: If metadata is missing, click “Edit” to update or enrich it. The new screen offers extra fields on the top right that you can use to amend the metadata.  In Classic, you had to use a dropdown menu.

If you have any problems using the new bookmarking workflow, please do get in touch with readinglists@ucl.ac.uk 

OR  use the feedback button from the top menu on the readinglist@ucl home page

readinglists@ucl Homepage feedback button

We’ve revamped the reading list student web pages to make it easier for students to find the information they need regarding readinglists@ucl.

mortarboards

New owl postcard

From the pages students can discover how to :

• Find their list and navigate through the reading list with ease
• Make personal notes and track their reading intentions (these will only be visible to the student)
• Export lists using various citation styles
• Report broken links
• Get further information from our handy FAQs

Whether students are diving into their first module or preparing their first essay, readinglists@ucl is designed to support the student journey.

We welcome students to check it out to make the most of their reading experience!

If you experience any issues when using your reading list, please contact readinglists@ucl.ac.uk

Students, ever wondered how to stay on the right side of copyright while diving into your course readings? We’ve got just the thing for you and it’s way more fun than it sounds!

Save the Date:

Tuesday 25th November

Just outside the IoE Library
11am – 2pm

Colin the Copyright Nerd

Swing by for a morning  of copyright wisdom, sweet treats, and a chance to win big! Meet the one and only “ Colin the Copyright Nerd”,  yes he’s real, well, to be more precise he’s not, he’s AI  generated, but he’s here to help you unravel the mysteries of copyright. Come and play the  “Copyright for Humans” game and see if you can become the wise owl of copyright !

Owl postcard for readinglists@ucl

Got thoughts on your online reading list? We want to hear them! Take our quick online survey and help us make your experience of using your reading lists even better.

And because we love to spoil you, we have :

• £25 Loveshop vouchers up for grabs
  

  Loveshop_voucher

• Lollipops and chocolate for everyone
• A whole lot of copyright and reading list fun!

So come for the treats, and leave a little wiser about copyright and your online reading lists. What more could you ask for?

The rollover for 2025 is complete! All your 2024-25 reading lists have been archived and a new copy has been created for 2025-26, which you can edit straight away.

If modules are not running this year, please let us know so we can archive the list. This hides it from view to avoid confusion and also saves it for future re-use.

Over the summer you can prepare your reading lists for the new academic year. You just need to review, edit and publish!

Pile of books with front edge displayed – ©Farther Along licensed CC BY 2.0

Do my digitised readings also roll forward  ? 

When your new list is created, the digitised readings (digitised under the CLA licence and added to your list by the TLS team) also copy forward.  There is a separate, behind-the-scenes process in July/August where the readings are re-checked automatically for the coming year. If your module is not running let us know so we can archive the digitised readings, ready for another year.

Every summer, Teaching and Learning Services (TLS)  rollover reading lists and have a new copy made for the new academic year, much like the Moodle snapshot. This year, we will rollover on the evening of  Tuesday 8^th July 2025 from about 5pm.

Owl bookmark

Reading lists for 2024-25 will have an exact copy made for 2025-26, which will publish immediately.

• The old version (2024-25) will archive, which means it will disappear from public view but can be found and re-used in future years if needed.
• Students will still have continuous access to their reading lists: there is no down time for viewing lists.
• Editing rights remain constant, so list editors are able to edit the new lists as soon as they appear.
• Lists already set up as 2025-2026 will be unaffected by the rollover.

Please note

• Unpublished changes will not copy forward into the new list: please publish your lists before 5pm on the 8^th July if you wish your updates to be carried forward, or we can do this for you. Just email us using the details provided below.
• We suggest you stop editing reading lists before 5pm on 8^th July, and continue editing when you can see it has the 2025-26 date stamp – certainly from the next morning Wednesday 9th July 2025, if not sooner.
• The Moodle ‘Library resources’ block needs no maintenance and will continue to link to the most recent year’s list.   If you have been using the new LTI.3 reading list integration tool, you should not be required to re-link items. However, do get in touch if you experience any problems.
• To have old courses archived, new lists set up, or current module names amended, email us your requests!

If you are aware of students who may need access to the 2024-25 version of the lists, they can do any of the following :

• take a copy of the list by using the ‘View & Export’ button – before 5pm on 8th July
• save the URL of the list, which will continue to work even after the list is archived
• let us know that it needs to be revived if it has already been archived, and we will make it available for the student

Support

Do you need a refresher on how to edit and manage your lists?  TLS can provide training on readinglists@ucl via Teams or face-to-face, whichever you prefer.  We also have online quick guides, videos and FAQs on the ReadingLists@UCL Libguides.  FAQs and a link to the guides are also available from the ReadingLists@UCL webpages

Get in touch and you could walk away with a new list set up and ready to go, linked via the Library Resources block in Moodle !

Did you know that you can utilise other resources types to enrich the metadata on your online reading list ?

Talis (the reading list software provider) have enabled four new resource types : Database, Newspaper, Object and Report. Here is how you can use them –

Bookmark the item as usual, and if you need to change the resource type, click on the drop down under resource type –

Resource type drop down arrow

Once you click the drop down arrow, you can then see the new options :

New Talis resource types

Select the resource type you want, and continue to bookmark as usual.

In addition to the new resource types, there are also 6 new additional metadata fields which you can add to bookmarks. These are:

• Format
• Number
• Identifier
• Series
• Location
• Court

Additional fields options

If you feel there is a resource type or additional field that you would like added as options, please let us know and we will raise this with Talis.

The new Bookmarking Extension Button for Chrome has been released ! The current one will stop being supported at the end of this year, so Talis have provided an updated version. This will replace the current Extension bookmarking button, and will improve the bookmarking experience including bookmarking from Youtube !.

It’s  easy to install, and on most home machines you will probably see that it is already sitting neatly where your previous button was located on Chrome.

The new icon is now a bright green circle with a T in the middle.

New Bookmarking Extension button

However, if you cannot find the bookmarking extension on Chrome follow the steps below:

• Select the Jigsaw icon on the Extension toolbar
• Click on the “Pin” icon next to Talis Aspire Reading Lists to “pin” it to your browser
• You should now be able to see the “T” icon

Chrome Bookmarking Extension with pin

Versions for other browsers will be released over the coming days and we will let you know when these are available.

Owl postcard for readinglists@ucl

Each summer the reading lists have a new copy made for the new academic year, much like the Moodle snapshot. This year, we will rollover on the evening of Tuesday 16^th July from about 5pm.

Reading lists for 2023-24 will have an exact copy made for 2024-25, which will publish immediately.

• The old version (2023-24) will archive, which means it will disappear from public view but can be found and re-used in future years if needed.
• Students will still have continuous access to their reading lists: there is no down time for viewing lists.
• Editing rights remain constant, so list editors are able to edit the new lists as soon as they appear.
• Lists already set up as 2024-2025 will be unaffected by the rollover.

Please note

• Unpublished changes will not copy forward into the new list: please publish your lists before 5pm on the 16^th July if you wish your updates to be carried forward, or we can do this for you. Just email us, details are below.
• We suggest you stop editing reading lists before 5pm on 16^th July, and continue editing when you can see it has the 2024-25 date stamp – certainly from the next morning Wednesday 17th July 2024, if not sooner.
• The Moodle ‘Library resources’ block needs no maintenance and will continue to link to the most recent year’s list.   If you have been using the new LTI.3 reading list integration tool, you should not be required to re-link items. However, do get in touch if you experience any problems.
• To have old courses archived, new lists set up, or current module names amended, email us your requests!

If you are aware of students who may need access to the 2023-24 version of the lists, they can do any of the following :

• take a copy of the list by using the ‘View & Export’ button – before 5pm on 16th July
• save the URL of the list, which will continue to work even after the list is archived
• let us know that it needs to be revived if it has already been archived, and we will make it available for the student

Support

Do you need a refresher on how to edit and manage your lists?  The ReadingLists@UCL webpages  and Libguides have online quick guides including short videos, and FAQs. The TLS team offer refresher training via Teams or face-to-face

Get in touch and you could walk away with a new list set up and ready to go, linked via the Library Resources block in Moodle !

If the answer is yes, then why don’t you take a look at the new LTI 1.3 (launched last summer) !  As rollover for Moodle courses has now begun, new embedded links will have to be created for 2024-2025 Moodle courses using the new LTI 1.3.

However, you will still be able to view your reading list and embedded sections from the old LTI on current Moodle courses and any previous ones, but as the old LTI has now been retired,  you cannot now use it for embedding links.

The new LTI is available from the Moodle palette as seen below.

Screenshot of Moodle palette showing the new LTI.1.3 integration tool

The new LTI offers the same features as the old one, but has a slightly different took and feel. We have plenty of information regarding the new LTI on our Teaching and Learning Services web pages, which includes some PDFs and videos on how to install the integration tool.

You also might like to read our previous blog from last year on the new LTI.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at readinglists@ucl or if you have a query about Moodle in general, please contact the Digital Education Team.