Aaron Tyo-Dickerson

Analyzing

NotebookLM Help

Sources

A source is a snapshot of a document you bring into NotebookLM (like a Google Doc or PDF). NotebookLM uses these sources to answer your questions and fulfill your requests.

When you add a source, NotebookLM generates a summary, highlights key topics, and suggests questions. This helps you quickly grasp the document’s content (Google).

Types:

  • Google Docs
  • Google Slides
  • PDF, Text and Markdown files
  • Web URLs
  • Copy-pasted text
  • Youtube URLs of public videos
  • Audio files (Google)
Text Files

Notebooks

Organization: 

Notebooks are like folders for your projects in NotebookLM. They keep your work organized and separate. Each notebook is isolated, meaning the AI cannot access information from other notebooks when working within one (Google).

Sharing: 

You can easily share notebooks with others by clicking the “Share” icon.

  • Viewer access: Allows others to read your sources and notes but not make any changes
  • Editor access: Grants full permissions to view, add, remove, and even share the notebook with others (Google)

Questions

Interacting with your sources:

NotebookLM allows you to ask questions and give instructions based on the sources you’ve uploaded. You can even choose which sources it uses to answer by selecting them with checkboxes (Google).

Understanding responses:

NotebookLM provides citations that show exactly where in your source documents the information came from. This makes it easy to verify the accuracy of responses (Google).

Notes

Creating Notes: 

NotebookLM offers flexible ways to create notes. You can save AI responses you find helpful, or write your own notes directly. This allows you to capture important information and insights (Google).

Working with Notes: 

You can have up to 1000 notes per notebook. Need to turn your notes into a source for the AI?  No problem! You can convert individual notes or all of them at once into sources that NotebookLM can then use to answer your questions(Google).

Audio Overview

NotebookLM can create audio summaries of your notebooks! These “Audio Overviews” are AI-generated discussions highlighting the main points of your source documents. Just click “Generate” to create one, and then listen, share, or download it.

Want to ask questions about your Audio Overview?  With the new Interactive mode, you can! Simply tap Join while listening, and an AI host will call on you to ask your question. They’ll provide a personalized answer based on your sources and then continue with the overview (Google).