HARLO & the new information generation

Click here to view the video.

We changed the title of our reading list system from Reading Lists Online to Harper Adams Resource Lists Online a couple of years ago. It wasn’t simply because we were having a new system and we wanted a nice easy to remember acronym, HARLO. The main factor in the name change probably went largely unnoticed; we decided to move away from “Reading” lists and move to “Resource” lists. At the time this felt like an obvious change as the lists didn’t simply consist of books, journal titles and articles – there were websites, online PDFs and Youtube videos. The traditional idea of reading for a degree no longer felt the appropriate way of expressing the recommended resources.

Since the change the digital and information world has blown up even more, for countless reasons not that one significant one comes to mind! We are now inundated with webinars, podcasts, Tedtalks, tiktoks, audio books and on and on. These tend to be found in numerous different places on numerous different platforms – sometimes free other times behind paywalls. It’s difficult to know where to look for the better sources of information. HARLO provides an opportunity to organise these resources, to provide a platform where all these rich sources of information can be collected in one place.

The library can provide support in locating the vast different formats with which information is now disseminated and also provide the tools to organise in an appropriate fashion to simplify the search process for students.

There have been some recent changes to the look, feel and functionality of HARLO. These are quickly summarised in this short YouTube video.

Looking forward to the next academic year if you have any new modules that need setting up, would like training or a refresher on managing the lists yourselves or would like help in putting the lists together please contact us at libhelp@harper-adams.ac.uk or your departments designated liaison librarian directly via Teams/email.