User Guide to Creating Reading Lists (February 2008 edition)

This Guide is available in one large PDF file (3.7MB) or as individual images which are listed below. The images have commentary and instructions on how to use the many features of the Reading List Creation and Editing Tools.

Introduction

User created reading lists is a new feature of the Online Library of Liberty. It is designed to help professors & teachers more easily use the resources of the OLL in their teaching. You could link to individual OLL pages from your own website, or you could use our list creation & editing tool to gather them all into one location, post this page on the OLL website, and give the URL of this page to your students.

OLL reading lists automatically contain the full bibliographical information for each book, its URL, & the date the page was accessed. All you need to do is browse the OLL website & select the items you want, then add some description, a title, & any instructions you might have for the students. Your students can also use the other resources of the OLL to do further reading if they wish to. We have a number of samples of user created reading lists for you to look at for guidance & inspiration.

Summary of Steps

This is a summary of the steps needed to create a reading list:

• Sign up for an account (approval sent by email)
• Login as a list creator
• Create a new Reading List
• Browse the OLL website selecting material for your reading list
• Edit your reading list
• Submit your reading list for approval
• approval & posting of your Reading list on the OLL website (notification by email)

Step-by-step Guide to Creating Your Own Reading List

General info about User Created Reading Lists

• image 2, image 3, image 4

Overview

• Where to begin
• the Readings List page
• an example of a reading list - an undergraduate course on Ancient Political Philosophy - (page 2)
• books which are part of other reading lists are flagged

How to start creating your own Reading List

• the Sign up page
• successful account creation
• the Login page
• creating a new list

Creating your first Reading List

• general info page 1 and page 2
• naming the list and writing the introduction
• finding works by a particular author (e.g. Plato)
• selecting a volume from the search list (Plato's Republic)
• the Reading List Editor Tools
• browsing the title's table of contents page for the right section
• opening the section of the book you want to include on your reading list and adding it to your list (Book III of Plato's Republic) (page 2)
• adding aditional titles
• adding a PDF title to your list
• browsing the Forum for essays
  • searching the Forum by key words ("Greek philosophy")
  • displaying the search results and selecting an essay for your list
  • opening the essay and adding it to your list (J.S. Mill on Philosophy and the Classics)
• adding additional works and submitting your list

Editing Your First Reading List [For more information about editing and formatting the text of your Readig List see this page]

• adding titles, descriptive material, and extrernal links to your list
• changing the order of your selected items, formatting your introductions, saving and previewing your list
• previewing your list
• submitting your list for publishing, editing the info about yourself, creating a new list, logging out
• logging out
• the final stage

Logging in again to create additional reading lists

Things to Note

• to add an Essay from the Forum or a book/chapter from the Library to your reading list you must have that essay, book, or chapter open in your browser.
• you cannot at present add part of a PDF file to your Reading list. If you wish to include a PDF version of a book in your list you can do so via the book’s table of contents page.
• you need to log out once you have finished creating your reading list, otherwise the “Reading List Editor’s Tool” box will continue to be displayed in your browser as you visit other pages in the OLL website.