How to share a reading list with your team

A team reading list usually starts in a chat channel. Someone posts an industry report, someone else drops a long article about a competitor, a third person shares a paper that changes how you think about a problem. A month later a new starter asks what they should read, and the answer is “scroll up” through hundreds of messages.

This guide covers the usual ways teams keep a shared reading list, then shows how to run one from a shared Fabric folder: getting the material in, setting who can add and who can comment, reading and discussing in one place, and asking questions across everything on the list.

How teams usually keep a reading list

A dedicated Slack or Teams channel is the most common setup. Posting a link takes seconds, and people see it when it lands. Older posts scroll out of view, though, and the discussion about each piece ends up in threads that are hard to find again. Search inside the channel matches words in the message, which may be little more than the URL.

A shared document or spreadsheet listing titles, links and who added them is the next step. It’s tidy for a while. Keeping it current depends on people remembering to add to it, and it holds pointers rather than the material, so PDFs end up in someone’s downloads folder and paywalled articles can’t be opened by the whole team.

Some teams use a Notion database with status columns, or a shared folder in Google Drive for the PDFs. Both work, and both split the list from the reading: the article is in one place, the notes in another, and the conversation in chat.

Step 1: Create a shared space or folder for the list

Make a folder called something like “Team reading”, or a space if the list is large enough to need subfolders by topic. Start by moving in what’s already been shared: paste links from the chat channel straight into the folder, where each becomes a bookmark with the page saved for reading and search, and drag in any PDFs or documents.

Going forward, people can save into the folder as they find things. The browser extension saves a whole page, selected text or images while browsing, and the share sheet on iOS and Android does the same from any app. If the team follows particular blogs or publications, RSS feeds can bring new posts in automatically as a one-way sync.

Step 2: Share it with the right permissions

Click Share on the folder or space to open the share modal and give your team access. Roles are viewer, commenter, editor and admin, and you can set them at space or file level. Give editor access to the people who should add to the list, and commenter access to anyone who should read and discuss without changing what’s on it. Roles and permissions explains what each role can do.

People outside the company, such as an adviser or a contractor, can use a shared link without signing up. If a wider group should see the list but not take part, a publish link gives view-only access instead; Step 5 covers that. For setting up the space itself, setting up a collaborative workspace is a useful companion read.

Step 3: Read and discuss where the material lives

Saved articles open in reader mode, which strips out ads and clutter, and reading progress syncs across devices, so someone can start a report on a laptop and finish it on the train.

Commenters can highlight text in PDFs and documents and attach a comment, so the discussion about a specific paragraph sits next to that paragraph. Any comment can be marked completed, which helps when a comment is a question that needs an answer. The annotations page shows how highlights and comments work.

Because the comments live on the material, a discussion about a report stays with that report. Someone opening it six months later sees what the team made of it, rather than a bare file.

Step 4: Ask questions across the whole list

Open the folder and open the AI assistant. It’s automatically limited to that folder and analyzes everything in it, so you can ask what the reports on the list say about pricing trends, or which pieces disagree with each other. Answers cite their sources with clickable references, so anyone can check the original passage.

Useful answers can be saved as notes in the same folder, which gives a new starter a summary to read before working through the full list. On the Team plan, Fabric Tag lets people ask the same kinds of questions from Slack or Discord by mentioning Fabric in a channel.

Step 5: Publish a view-only version for a wider audience

If the list is useful beyond the team, for customers, a community or a cohort of new hires across the company, publish it. Click Share, open the Publish tab and click Create link. A published folder appears as a web page, and visitors can view it, and download files if you allow that, but can’t comment. Publishing is on every plan.

Turn off Allow indexing by search engines if the list isn’t meant to be found on Google. Edits to the folder update the published page, so the shared version stays in step with the team’s list.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the best way to share a reading list with a team?

Keep the material itself in one shared folder rather than a list of links, give people editor or commenter access, and discuss each piece in comments next to the text. That keeps the reading, notes and conversation together.

Can teammates add their own articles to the list?

Yes, if they’re editors. They can paste links, drag in files, or save straight into the folder with the browser extension or the share sheet on their phone.

Can people comment without being able to change the list?

Yes. Give them commenter access. They can highlight text and leave comments but can’t add or remove items.

Can someone outside the company see our reading list?

Yes. External people can use a shared link without signing up, at whatever permission you set. For view-only access, publish the folder instead.

Can AI summarize everything on our reading list?

Yes. Open the AI assistant inside the folder and ask for a summary; it works across everything in the folder and cites its sources. How to create a shared knowledge base shows where this fits in a team’s wider setup.

Can we pull in new posts from blogs automatically?

Yes. Connect an RSS feed and new posts sync into Fabric. RSS is a one-way connection, and connections need a paid plan.

Can my team ask about the reading list from Slack?

Yes, with Fabric Tag, which is on the Team plan. Mention Fabric in a channel and it answers from your workspace with cited sources. The team pricing page lists what’s included.

Does every team member need a paid seat?

Fabric’s pricing is not per seat, so adding people to the space doesn’t add a charge per person.