Bringing Organization To The Gospel Library

Here is how to get the most out of your Gospel Library

The Gospel Library is a powerful tool, but its simplicity makes it hard to see where the power lies.

One of the most often asked questions I get about the Gospel Library is how to use Tags, Notes, and Notebooks. People have a sense that the power is in those tools, and they are right, but they haven’t figured how to effectively use them.

I was also struggling with the same issues, and this caused me to step back and take a look at what I was doing. Being a visual person, I drew diagrams and charts to find the relationship between the three tools. I pondered. I prayed. Overtime, a clear picture began to show itself and I started making changes which brought about refinement and using the Gospel Library to its full potential.

For a few months, I have been sharing what I discovered and have received excellent feedback.

Here is what I have learned. I have listed them in the order of importance.

Notes

Notes are for recording:

• questions and answer to those questions
• observations
• impressions and revelations
• what you are feeling as you read the content

Tags

Tags are for providing keywords for notes and content. Here but a few examples:

• Faith
• Tithing
• Quotes/ savior
• Quotes/ general authorities
• Scripture/ study
• Scripture/ memorization
• Abuse
• Christ/ character of
• Christ/ miracles
• Study/ to-do’s

Note that some Tags are identical to the topics in the Church’s Topical Guide. For example, Faith and Tithing. So, why am I creating a Tag for something that has the topic in the Topical Guide? Because the content I am tagging, for example, “Faith” has special meaning to me and most likely my content is not referenced in the Topical Guide. The Topical Guide is a great resource for research, but once I have found a helpful reference, I will tag it, so I can quickly find the content in the future.

I use the forward slash and lower case letters to show a sub-topic of a Tag. Instead of “Scripture/ study” I could have created a Tag called “Study of the Scriptures.” A search for “study” or scriptures” would have found the tag of either method. However, I prefer using the forward slash and lower case for no other reason than, in my opinion, it looks better and groups them in a logical order.

Notebooks

Notebooks are for research and creating lessons and talks. In general, anything that you want to be able to scroll down and see all the research or the order you are going to present. While in a Notebook, you can create and edit Notes that are not connected to any content. I use these Notes for comments and for a subject divider by using only the Title field and leaving the body of the Note blank.

In Practice

Here is how Notes, Tags and Notebooks come together.

As you read, slowly record in a Note the thoughts that come. Always, create a title for the Note. The title is where you summarize what is in the Note. This will help you quickly find a Note when looking at the search results.

As a sidebar, I want to stress the importance of reading content slowly. Spiritual content is meant to be read slowly, so we have time to question, ponder and listen to the Spirit. The Elizabethan scholar, Arthur Henry King, shared, “When we study the scriptures, we must study, not as quickly as possible, but as slowly as possible. . .It’s not the speed at which we read, but the speed at which the thoughts come, which counts. . .”

Now, as you create the Note, question if you should add tag(s). For example, is this Note part of a topic you are studying, or on a doctrine or principle such as faith? If I assign a Tag(s) how would I use it in the future?

Tags are great for providing keywords to a Note that is on a topic in which the Note itself doesn’t mention the topic. For example, suppose I create the following Note—As I read this verse I am reminded of that time that I prayed for help in deciding upon my major as I started college; the answer came line upon line.

That Note is about pray, faith, patience, and answers to prayers, making decisions etc. and none of the words in the Note include those keywords. This is where Tags play a vital role.

It could be argued, putting the keywords at the bottom of the Note accomplishes the same purpose as using Tags; in part true. You could use the general Search function to locate the Notes, but you can’t organize the search results. Furthermore, a misspelling of a keyword would make it impossible to find the Note. Tags aid in spelling consistency.

Tags are also used to connect content that have no Notes. As I read a verse, a line from a conference talk, or something from a manual that covers a particular topic, doctrine, or principle, I tag it so to locate the content in the future.

I have few Notebooks. Once I have given a talk or a lesson, I delete the Notebook. The reason is, the talk or lesson was created by the Spirit for a specific audience.

In the future if I am assigned a talk on the same subject I talked about five years ago for example, I need to pray and have the Spirit show me what I need for the new audience. The only exceptions are for those that have been assigned to speak by the Stake or Mission President to several units, or if you wanted to keep the talks as part of your journal. But, I think this would only be useful if the Notebook included the entire text of the talk. For example, my talks only include bullet points and links to scripture, and I am not convinced how valuable that would be to future generations.

Adding Outside Content to the Gospel Library

I have two choices to get outside content into the Gospel Library. I can copy and paste the outside content to a Note connected to Library content, or to a Note in a Notebook. The former is problematic in finding matching content, the latter is easier and allows one to create a note from outside the Gospel Library without attaching it to content. Here they are the steps.

Suppose I have a BYU devotional I want to have in the Gospel Library. I create a Notebook called “Inbox,” which is the temporary dumping ground content outside the Gospel Library.

In the Inbox I create a Note and paste the text from the talk into the Note, then I create a Tag for the Note, such as, BYU Devotionals. If you don’t add a Tag, the Note can be found through the general Search function.

As the Inbox begins to grow, I delete it. I then create a new Inbox.

In summary, I use Notes for recording inner dialogue, Tags for keywords and Notebooks for projects.

I love would to hear your comments on today’s post. Moreover, feel free to share your workflow.