# request: reorder notebooks in collections

**URL:** <https://talk.observablehq.com/t/request-reorder-notebooks-in-collections/2021>\
**Category:** Feedback\
**Created:** [June 1, 2019, 6:16am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/request-reorder-notebooks-in-collections/2021 "2019-06-01T06:16:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jrus](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/jrus/32/586_2.png) [@jrus](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/jrus)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 6:16am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/request-reorder-notebooks-in-collections/2021/1 "2019-06-01T06:16:35Z")

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Strict ordering by publication date makes it tricky to organize a narrative. The “previous” and “next” links at the bottom of a collected notebook could be better if the flow were related to the high-level structure of the collection.

For example, the [@observablehq/introduction](https://observablehq.com/collection/@observablehq/introduction) collection should probably be re-ordered so that it starts with 1-2 introductory notebooks, then goes to the ‘user manual’ overview notebook, then goes through more detailed or specialized topics afterward. With a chronological order, as additional notebooks keep getting added to this collection, the important introductory material keeps getting pushed further and further down the list.

Edit: as a follow-up, the way I think of the “collection” feature (or perhaps just the feature I want to have) is “here is a curated collection of notebooks following X theme, and telling a specific high-level story”, whereas the reverse-chronological list is more aligned with the intuition of “here’s a minimally curated [topic tag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29)”.

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**Author:** ![sydneypalumbo](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/sydneypalumbo/32/2477_2.png) [@sydneypalumbo](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/sydneypalumbo)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 4:38am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/request-reorder-notebooks-in-collections/2021/2 "2019-12-13T04:38:30Z")

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Hi Jacob! 👋 If you haven’t already seen it, we [launched ordered collections](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/ordered-collections/2643) today! So now you can finally make some more narrative-friendly collections. We already turned a few of Observable’s collections into ordered collections, too — check out our [Tutorial](https://observablehq.com/collection/@observablehq/tutorial) and [Changelog](https://observablehq.com/collection/@observablehq/changelog) to see a couple examples!