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Getting Started with Shelf: Your First Week in a Personal Study Library

New to Shelf? This walkthrough covers account setup, your first uploads, library structure, reading with highlights, asking Study AI, and planning tasks without overwhelm.

12 min read
Shelf — Upload

Drop your PDF here

Parsed text or original PDF view

Parsed

Highlight & Study AI

Original

View as PDF

Create your account and land in the library

Shelf is a personal study workspace: after you sign in, /my-content becomes home. You are not dropped into a content marketplace — you start with empty shelves you fill yourself.

Use email OTP or Google sign-in. Once authenticated, the header search (⌘K), theme toggle, and navigation to Library, Planner, Dashboard, and Study AI are available immediately.

Shelf — Upload

Drop your PDF here

Parsed text or original PDF view

Parsed

Highlight & Study AI

Original

View as PDF

Upload something you already study

Pick one PDF you open every week — a textbook chapter, lecture deck, case brief, or work brief. Use Add material from the library, drop the file, and wait for the short-lived upload to finish.

Shelf stores one source PDF per page. Processing builds searchable text in the background so highlights and Study AI work when HTML is ready; you can open the original PDF view right away.

Shelf — Library
Polity notes
Current affairs
Essay drafts

Collections, topics, and root pages

Create a collection named after a course, project, or exam paper. Add topics only when a folder would hold more than a handful of pages. Root-level pages sit beside collections for quick one-offs.

Shelf never invents a default General topic. Empty structure stays out of the way until you need hierarchy.

constitutional-amendments.pdf

Basic Structure doctrine limits Parliament's power to amend the Constitution beyond its core identity.

Kesavananda Bharati (1973) established that certain features cannot be destroyed by amendment.

Study AI

Explain this highlight

The Basic Structure doctrine means amendments cannot alter the Constitution's essential character.
Short notes

Read with highlights

Open your page in the reader. Select text and apply a highlight color. Consistent colors (definitions, questions, action items) make revision faster later.

Toggle sidebar with ⌘B, flip pages with arrows, and reopen later — IndexedDB caches bytes so return visits feel instant.

Shelf — Planner
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Polity revision

Ask Study AI on day one

Select a confusing paragraph and press ⌘L (or open the Study AI panel). Ask for a short explanation or bullet summary grounded in that passage.

Answers cite your material when retrieval finds matches. Page-scoped threads save so you can continue tomorrow.

Shelf — Upload

Drop your PDF here

Parsed text or original PDF view

Parsed

Highlight & Study AI

Original

View as PDF

Plan one concrete task

Open Planner and add a task linked to the page you uploaded: Finish chapter 3 notes. Schedule it on a day you can keep.

Completing tasks updates the dashboard without blanking the UI — mutations stay optimistic and non-blocking.

Shelf — Library
Polity notes
Current affairs
Essay drafts

Optional: browse free curriculum

If you want baseline syllabus content, open /learn. It is separate from your private library — use it as reference while keeping personal notes in /my-content.

Curriculum is optional. Many users never open Learn and still get full value from uploads, highlights, AI, and planner.

constitutional-amendments.pdf

Basic Structure doctrine limits Parliament's power to amend the Constitution beyond its core identity.

Kesavananda Bharati (1973) established that certain features cannot be destroyed by amendment.

Study AI

Explain this highlight

The Basic Structure doctrine means amendments cannot alter the Constitution's essential character.
Short notes

Habits that stick after week one

Upload before you take notes elsewhere. Highlight while reading, not after. Ask Study AI when stuck instead of switching to a generic chatbot that has never seen your file.

Pin one active collection, install Shelf as a PWA if you study on mobile, and use ⌘K instead of hunting folders. Small habits compound into a library you trust.

Shelf — Planner
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Polity revision