What you need to know about Course Reserves: Student Edition
Course Reserves — why do you need them, where are they, how do you get them? All of these are questions that might go through your mind when you see them on your syllabus. Your instructor puts books, articles, or items on hold for his or her class because they want you to have access to things that may be difficult to get, such as personal copies of books or movies, or so that everyone can have equal access to a text without having to buy it. All Reserves are kept behind the Circulation Desk, just to your left when you come into the library. You can get one by asking a desk staffer to get it for you. The best way to do this is to have your “course code” ready, since the Reserves are in order by these codes. In many cases this code will be on your syllabus or in the catalog, it will have three to four letters and four numbers, for example: ENGL1010 or PSY4050. If you don’t know the course code, we can find the Reserve by looking it up using your instructor’s name. Knowing one of these two things will make it much easier and faster to get your Reserve. Once you check it out, you have the reserve for 3 hours, 1 day, 3 days or sometimes even a week.
Some Reserves are not at the desk, they’re online. These are called Electronic Reserves — articles that have been scanned and entered into the computer. These are really useful because you can access them from any computer at any time. To find them, go the Lupton Library website and click on “Course Reserves” (under “Get Resources” in the upper left), then enter the course code, instructor name, or title of the article for which you are looking. When options come up, click on the correct one and then click “Reserve Detail.” This will take you to a list of items on reserve for the course. You’ll see everything that’s on reserve for the class — books, movies, and more. Electronic Reserves will have a URL to click that will take you directly to the article. From there you can read it, print it, or save it for later use.
What you need to know about Course Reserves: Instructor Edition
Course Reserves – why do I need them, how can I put things on reserve, how do I get them back? Reserves are great for giving your class access to items they may not otherwise be able to find or to afford. Putting things on reserve also expands the resources you can assign to support your syllabus, since the items are free and easy for the students to use. There are two kinds of Reserves: physical and Electronic Reserves. Books, movies, CDs, and other items can all be put on physical reserve and are held behind the Circulation Desk (to the left when you enter the library). Electronic Reserves are articles, database links, or excerpts from books that we scan and enter into the computer. Your students can access them from any computer at any time so they’re very convenient.
You may submit your Electronic Reserves to the Circulation Desk as photocopies or you may bring in the original sources. When you bring reserve items to the desk, a staffer will give you a Reserve Submission Form to fill out, but the best way to submit a reserve request is online. You can do this easily by going to the “Faculty & Staff” section of the library website, clicking on “Course Reserves FAQ for Faculty”, and then clicking on “Reserve Submission Form.” Once you’ve sent in the Reserve Form online, you can bring the reserve items to the Circulation Desk or, in the case of a library-owned item, we will pull it from the shelves for you. This page also clearly explains how to link Electronic Reserves to your course in BlackBoard. When the Reserve is no longer needed, you can pick it up in the library or we can send it to your office. In the case of an Electronic Reserve article, we can return it via campus mail or simply recycle it if you don’t want it back. You can let us know if you’d like an item returned or not via the Reserve Submission Form. It’s that simple!