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Managing collections

Collections in Librario let you group related publications by topic and manage them together.

Unlike personal favourites, collections are meant for teamwork. They work especially well as working collections: the literature a particular department or project keeps to hand.

What collections are for

An important use case is specialist teams (centres of excellence) and departments. Keeping the relevant specialist literature in one central collection helps you:

  • Bring new employees up to speed quickly
  • Make the core works of the field available in one place
  • Document standards and key works

Besides specialist teams, collections are often used to manage project literature and to document research projects.

The collections overview

Screenshot of the collections overview in Librario. The header holds a search bar and a button to create a collection. Below are collection cards for several specialist teams, each showing the name, the start of the description, the number of publications and the owners.
Overview of all collections with search and filters
Screenshot of the German interface.

You reach the collections overview through Collections in the main navigation. At a glance you see:

  • All collections in your organisation
  • The number of publications in each
  • The date of the last update
  • The owners of the collection

The search bar searches the names of the collections. With My collections and Editable collections you narrow the list to collections you own or may edit.

Creating a collection

Screenshot of the form for creating a collection. The form has fields for the name and a description with Markdown formatting. Below is a section for assigning permissions.
Form for creating a new collection
Screenshot of the German interface.

To create a new collection:

  1. Click Create new collection
  2. Give it a meaningful name
  3. Add a description and useful links, for example to internal resources
  4. Assign further editors and owners

Markdown for formatting

In the Description field you can use Markdown for formatting, for example bold, italics, lists or links. The hint below the field links to an explanation of the syntax.

Managing publications

Screenshot of an open collection named "Kompetenzcenter: IT Architecture". On the left are the description and useful links, on the right the list of publications in the collection with covers, titles and metadata.
Detail view of a collection with its publications
Screenshot of the German interface.

There are two ways to add publications to a collection:

  • In the search results, with the folder icon Add to collection on the publication card
  • On the detail page of a publication, with the Add to collection button

Permissions and collaboration

Screenshot of the "Users & permissions" section in the edit form of a collection. A table shows the users and their assigned roles (Owner, Editor, Viewer). At the bottom is the "Add User" button.
Managing permissions and roles for a collection
Screenshot of the German interface.

Collections are visible to all employees in your organisation. This encourages knowledge sharing and makes relevant literature easy to find.

You assign permissions under Edit, in the Users & permissions section.

There are three permission levels for managing a collection:

Viewers (all users)

  • Can see the collection and its publications
  • Have access to the descriptions and links it holds
  • Can export the list of publications

Editors

  • Have all the rights of viewers
  • Can add publications to the collection or remove them
  • May change the name and description of the collection

Owners

  • Have all the rights of editors
  • Can add further editors and owners
  • May delete the collection

Whoever creates a collection becomes its owner automatically. Administrators and librarians have the rights of an owner in every collection.

Exporting publication lists

You can export the publications in a collection.

The export contains all bibliographic information on the publications, so you can import it into a reference manager.

You can choose from three export formats: BibTeX for LaTeX-based systems, CSV for spreadsheets, and EndNote.

  1. Open the collection you need
  2. Click the download icon Export
  3. Choose the format: Export as BibTeX, Export as EndNote or Export as CSV

Practical recommendations

What works best depends on how you use a collection. The following recommendations are based on our customers’ experience.

General recommendations

  • Choose meaningful names that describe what the collection contains
  • Record the purpose of the collection in its description
  • Name the points of contact for subject-matter questions

Recommendations for specialist teams

  • Choose a consistent naming convention, such as “[Department] team”
  • Name the subject-matter points of contact clearly in the description
  • Link other relevant resources in the description, for example a SharePoint folder with calculation tools or CAD templates

Recommendations for projects

  • Name the collection after the project number (if there is one) or use the format “YYYY-MM [project name]”, for example “2025-05 Project name”
  • Link other relevant resources in the description, for example the link to the project in your project management system