Reading Lists FAQ
For Staff
Waikato Reading Lists is a reading list management system which the University has introduced to streamline the creation and management of course reading lists and make copyright compliance easier.
Teaching staff:
- Bookmark potential readings in Library collections or elsewhere on the web.
- Organise readings into lists to make available to students via Moodle/Paper Outlines
- Update lists at any time and track student use and engagement.
- Copy lists for use in future teaching periods.
Students:
- A consistent reading list experience across papers and subjects, with direct access to electronic resources and scanned print material.
- Up-to-date availability information for resources in Library collections.
- Ability to mark reading intentions and add personal notes.
If you can't find your reading list, it may not exist, so email [email protected] and ask them to create it for you.
To meet copyright compliance our Educational licence with Copyright Licensing New Zealand requires all print material copied under the licence to be added to Waikato Reading Lists and go through the Digitisation request process.
This includes scanned or photocopied print book chapters, book sections or journal articles.
The above applies irrespective of how the items are disseminated (either via Moodle,handouts in class or in a course pack),
The licence allows you to copy:
- A book: (including a book of poems or short stories by same author) up to 10% of a work or a chapter whichever is greater
- A Journal article: one article from any one issue of the journal (more if they are on the same subject)
- Anthology: up to 15 pages of the whole or part of a single work contained in a collection of works. This would include a book of poetry or short stories by different authors.
- A single poem or a short story: up to 15 pages of the whole or part of the whole.
In addition to the material you must add for copyright compliance, you may like to add:
- Essential resources: Resources students should read, view, or listen to in preparation for a lecture or tutorial.
- Further resources: Items students may choose to read, view, or listen to in order to expand their understanding.
Examples include:
- Books/ebooks (links to UoW Library held print or electronic books)
- Book chapters (links to ebook chapters or digitised print chapters)
- Journal articles (links to free online articles or UoW Library subscribed articles, digitised print articles)
- Webpages/blogs (links to)
- Newspaper articles (links to electronic articles or digitised articles)
- Audiovisual material ie videos(links to UoW Library subscribed databases or to material freely available online)
- Theses (links to)
- Databases (links to)
- Images (links to)
A video in ETV can be linked to your reading list so that students can view the video directly without having to log into ETV and search for the video themselves. If you link to it, but don’t use the embed code, anyone not logged in to ETV will just get to the ETV log in screen, and then have to search for the video which can often be difficult to find.
From the webpage with the ETV video, add to bookmarks as normal. If it has been added already then use Edit metadata to update the web address field.
- Go to the ‘Edit Metadata window’ or the ‘Add Bookmark’.
- Further resources: Items students may choose to read, view, or listen to in order to expand their understanding.
- From the video details page in ETV, click on 'Get Embed Code'
- From the long embedding code that is provided, copy the code from https through to lib=0, (the highlighted part).
- Paste this into the Web Address field of your resource bookmark.
- Click 'Create' or 'Create and add to list'.



Here is an example of the shortened code - http://www.etv.org.nz/embed.php?m=single&id=51663&lib=0

Yes. High Demand requests are processed only for lists which are published.
Follow these steps:
- Open your reading list
- Click the vertical ellipsis next to the item you are recommending to be added to the High Demand collection
- Select Note for library and type in the words “High Demand”. Specify which library, Hamilton (HAM), Tauranga (TGA), or both (HAM & TGA)
- Click Save
Note: You must do this for each item you are recommending be added to the High Demand Collection.
You can include books, articles, YouTube clips, DVDs, websites, and other multimedia resources on your list. Bookmark and add them either from an online site (e.g. YouTube) or from a site with a good description of the resource (e.g. Library Search, Amazon). The list will link directly to online resources or have clear directions to the Library’s physical resources e.g. print material or DVDs.
You can add items that the Library doesn’t own to your reading list. The Library will run reports on published reading lists to check for any new or additional copies or licences that need to be acquired. If you want the Library to purchase an item please contact the Library, or email [email protected].
Yes, if the request falls within the copyright limits as set by the CLNZ Educational licence.
If you own a copy of the item you can upload a scan or lend to the library to scan. Otherwise the library will endeavour to acquire the item to scan.
If an item does not have an online record to bookmark from, you can manually add a bookmark. You can bookmark from an ever-increasing number of publishers, booksellers and websites (including Amazon and YouTube); You can see the full list of supported sites by checking Where can I bookmark from?
See also Can I add unpublished resources to my reading list?.
Setting Importance for suggested readings is optional, but it serves two purposes:
- It highlights essential or recommended readings for students.
- It helps the Library identify which items should be purchased.
You can use one list for multiple occurrences of a course (HAM, NET, TGA) in the same time period.
To re-use a list from one trimester in a different trimester, ask your Academic Liaison Librarian to copy the list.
If you wish to use the same reading list for multiple courses (e.g. MEDI305, and MEDI308), you will need to ask your Academic Liaison Librarian to copy the list.
Important: You will need to re-request any digitisations that you requested for the original list, as the Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) licence requires that the University reports each course that uses the digitisation.
From within the list, select Assign List Owner from the drop-down Edit menu. The lecturer must have created a profile or they will not be able to have a list assigned. They will receive an email invitation with instructions on how to complete the process.
Multiple staff can work on a list simultaneously. From the list Edit menu, select Invite List Publishers. Once your colleague has accepted the emailed invitation, the list will appear in their My Lists.
No. Resources that you bookmark appear only under your own My bookmarks tab. There are other ways of sharing work:
- When you bookmark a reading for the list you are collaborating on, choose the option Create and Add to List. This adds the bookmark to both your personal My Bookmarks and to the list you are collaborating on.
- You can save a copy of any bookmark on any published Waikato Reading List. From the initial list display, click the title of the reading to open its individual record, then click Add to my Bookmarks.
Yes. Instructions are in the Reading Lists for Staff guide under Add your list to the Paper Outline.
Yes. Instructions are in the Reading Lists for Staff guide under Add your list to Moodle.
It is possible to export an entire list of bookmarks to Endnote or Zotero.
Open your Zotero or Endnote library, then go into any Waikato Reading List, click on Export > Export Citations.
An RIS file will appear on the taskbar at the bottom left of your screen. Click on the RIS file and the citations will automatically be imported into your Endnote or Zotero library. The PDFs associated with the items will not be exported.
An RIS file is a plain text file that can contain multiple references. RIS files can be exported from reference software such as EndNote, Zotero etc.
Yes. Technically you can add anything you wish to your reading list as long as it meets copyright.
Unpublished resources such as lecturer course notes, PowerPoint slides, model answers and tests do not need to be included in Waikato Reading Lists for copyright purposes. These can be loaded in Moodle as long as you are the copyright owner or have permission.
By default your published list of citations is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Digitisations and links to database content will only ever be accessible to current UoW staff and enrolled students. To make your entire list accessible only to current UoW staff and enrolled students:
- Click on Edit, click on Privacy Control, select “only logged in users”
Privacy Control is now available to all List Publishers.If your list has never been published, none of the content will be visible to anyone who is not a publisher of that list (usually you and your Academic Liaison Librarian).
Quick Add allows you to search by citation, title, author or ISBN and quickly add an item to your bookmarks. Quick Add indicates if the library holds an item and if later editions are available. Once an item has been captured through Quick Add, it appears in your list of bookmarks, and you then need to assign it to a reading list.
Why don’t some items appear Quick Add?
The Quick Add feature sources information from a bibliographic database called Global Books in Print. As not all titles are indexed in this database, the library may hold items that don’t appear in Quick Add.
Yes. Any part of a page counts as 1 whole page.
Yes you can. Waikato Reading Lists is both a copyright reporting tool and a reading management system. Best practice is to link from Moodle to either your entire Reading List or individual items.See also the FAQ:
- Can I link to my Waikato Reading List from Moodle?
- What must go on my Reading List?
- Should I upload pdfs or just provide links?
Links should be provided whenever possible. The library collects usage stats on all items to inform selection and de-selection decisions. Usage stats are gathered through clicks into the item from a live link (i.e. directly into Library Search or the database). PDFs uploaded into an LMS from a journal articles obtained through our databases do not provide usage stats.
For Students
Have you signed in? Some lists are not visible until you have signed in
Go to https://waikato.rl.talis.com/index.html. On the top left click log in. On the next page enter your University of Waikato username and password
This is optional. You can still access your reading lists without creating a profile but it lets you organise your lists by setting reading intentions and adding personal notes to help with your studies. These notes are private and visible only to you.
If you don't find a list it is possible your lecturer has not set one up. Contact your lecturer.
The content of the list is designed by your lecturer. Please check with them for queries about the choice of readings, or clarification on the notes.
At the top of the list there is a Table of Contents tab. You can click that to view the headings of each section in your reading list, then click on the heading to take you to that section.
If the list has no sections, a red circle with a line through it will appear when you hover over the Table of Contents tab.
This is when an item has been scanned from a print resource. Click on the title to see the full record then click on the link View Online to see the pdf.
This refers to a book or journal that is available online or electronically. Click on the blue button Online Resource to access online resources in your reading list.
If you quote or indirectly quote from an item in a reading list, you have to reference it. In your reading list, click on the title to view its full record and get the elements required for referencing, i.e. Author, date, title, publication details. You do not include information about accessing the item from your Waikato Reading List i.e. Retrieved from https://waikato.rl.talis.com.
See the examples in the guides for your referencing style for information on how to reference books, journals websites etc.
Go back to Waikato Reading Lists Guides