How to read the documentation

These docs use a small set of styles so you can tell at a glance what kind of thing each reference is. When you see a styled element, its icon and label tell you what it is: something you navigate to, something you click, a surface you land on, something Lyra says back, or something you type. Color groups related elements into families, but you never have to rely on color: the icon and the label always carry the meaning.

If you are ever unsure, hover over any styled element and a small tooltip names its type.

The vocabulary

Where things live and how you get to them.

Library level the level a task happens at (account, school, or library). The level switcher at the top of the sidebar moves you between levels.
navigation path: Circulation then Check Out a menu path through the app.
screen: Checkout a named screen or view.
tab: Details a tab within a page.

Controls

Things you act on.

button: Save a button or primary action.
menu item: Delete an item inside a ⋯ or dropdown menu.
row action: Renew a per-row action in a table.
field: Barcode a form input.
setting: Deny loans to patrons with overdue items a toggle or configuration setting.

Surfaces

Named containers that open on a page.

dialog: Edit Faculty Overrides a modal dialog.
card: Recent Check-Ins a card or panel, by its title.

System output

What Lyra shows back to you.

message: Copy is not checked out. something Lyra says back to you, always where you acted — on the field itself, under the scan bar, under the row whose menu you used, in the dialog you confirmed in, or beside the button you pressed. Anything that needs a decision from you waits there until you make it; nothing expires while you look at the copy in your hand.

The bottom of the screen is for plain confirmations of things that changed nothing you can see — “Notice sent.”, “Copy weeded.” — and they dismiss themselves after a few seconds. Something that went wrong is never down there, with one exception: a failure with nowhere else to go, like an export whose menu has already closed. That one carries a warning mark and stays until you dismiss it.

Most of the time Lyra says nothing at all, because the screen already answered: a checked-in copy leaves the list, a renewed loan’s due date moves, a new hold appears in the queue. That visible change is the confirmation.
status: Overdue a status or state indicator.

Literal input

Exactly what you type or press.

key: / a keyboard key.
31234000012345 a literal value you type or scan.

How the documentation is organized

Pages here do one of four jobs, and the sidebar groups them that way. Knowing which one you’re in tells you what to expect from it.

Start here is for learning. Try it with sample data is a lesson — follow it start to finish on throwaway data and you’ll have run a checkout and a hold before touching anything real. The other pages in the group get you from a new account to a working library.
The activity sections — Circulation, Catalog, Patrons, OPAC, Administration, Migration, Troubleshooting — are for doing. Each page assumes you’re at the desk with a job in front of you and covers the steps for it. Troubleshooting pages are the same thing pointed at a problem instead of a task.
Concepts is for understanding. These pages explain how Lyra thinks — what an item is, how a hold moves, how policies resolve — and deliberately don’t tell you which buttons to press. Read one when a behavior surprises you.
Reference is for looking up. Column contracts, settings and their defaults, permission matrices. Nothing here is a walkthrough; it’s the material you keep open in another tab while you work.

When a task page needs a fact from Reference, or a rule from Concepts, it links there rather than repeating it. If two pages ever disagree, Reference is the one to trust.

How our guides are structured

Our task guides follow a few habits so you can trust the shape of what you are reading.

Numbered steps are things to do, in order. Do them top to bottom.
Prose (ordinary paragraphs) explains how or why something works. It is background, not a checklist.
Unordered lists like this one are options, facts, or conditions. They are not a sequence, so the order does not matter.

Sometimes a guide walks through what Lyra does on its own, for example the order of checks it runs on a scan. When it does, it says so, so you never mistake Lyra’s internal order for steps you perform.

A note on accessibility

Every element above is distinguished by its icon and its label, not by color alone. The styles read the same in light mode, dark mode, and print, and screen readers announce what each one is (for example, “button” or “navigation path”). If you cannot tell two colors apart, the icon and the words still tell you everything you need.