When you make a change to statuses and click update, you get feedback with a message next to the status header. When you make a change to a public or non-public note and click update, you don't get any feedback. In bug 19889, the feedback for the new local holds priority exclusion control shows as an alert at the top of the page. So this page gives feedback in two different ways or not at all. I would suggest keeping all the feedback the same as the statuses. Your focus is there, so putting a message next to the section heading works well. The new feature in 19889 should do it this way rather than the alert, and the notes should do this as well.
(In reply to Christopher Brannon from comment #0) > When you make a change to statuses and click update, you get feedback with a > message next to the status header. I wouldn't consider that a status update, it's a summary of the values in lost/damaged/withdrawn. The information appears whether or not you've just updated those values. The distinction is only important because it wouldn't make sense to display the value of notes in the same place. That said, I think it makes good sense to display a message box informing the user that a change has been made. The information could be displayed immediately below the heading.