Learning Commons | Cardinal Cushing Library

Course Reserves: Course Reserves Policy

The Library offers print and electronic course reserves.  Within the bounds of copyright law, we are committed to working with you to provide easy access to print and electronic scholarly materials to support student learning.

Why use Library Course Reserves?

• Readings are easily accessible to your students
• Ensures students have access to course materials
• Integrates automatically in ECLearn courses under the "EC Library Resources" menu option.

• Copyright compliance
• Offers detailed usage statistics to see how your students are accessing assigned materials

Placing an item on Reserve

• Emmanuel instructors can request course materials (see acceptable item list below) be linked to your ECLearn courses through the EC Library Resources menu option.
• An online request form must be completed each semester for items to be uploaded to the Reserve platform.
• By submitting items for Reserves, the instructor consents to the Emmanuel College reserve policies and rights (see copyright guidelines below).
• All requests will be processed in the order in which they are received. We recommend submitting requests early. During peak times (beginning of the semester), turnaround time could take 2-3 business days. An email notification will be sent to the instructor once the item has been uploaded and available for their students to use.

Items accepted for Reserves

• Any online item in the Library’s collection
  • The Library subscribes to over 265,865 scholarly e-books and 83,000 full text, academic journals, as well as newspapers and streaming video collections. 
• Any Open Educational Resource (OER)
  • Check out the Level Up 2021 module on the subject
• Any item in the public domain
  • Items may include federal government reports and documents or digitized historical documents. 
• Limited use of scanned print items
  • Any Emmanuel College Library owned item, any instructor original owned item, or any department original owned item
    • Excerpted material only.  As a rule of thumb, this typically means no more than one chapter of a book, one article from an issue of a periodical or newspaper. Beyond this, specific copyright clearance rights will need to be purchased.
    • If the item is not owned by the Emmanuel College Library, the scan will only be available for the current semester, absent evidence of permission from the copyright owner.   Use of the item in multiple courses may also require copyright permission.  Instructors are responsible for obtaining copyright permissions when required.  Additional information is provided in “Copyright Guidelines,”below.
  • Please contact  Karen Storin Linitz (linitzk@emmanuel.edu) for assistance with obtaining copyright clearance rights.

Copyright guidelines

The Library will reject an item for Reserves if, in its judgment, acceptance will result in copyright infringement. Our policies are informed by the following laws and guidance:

1. 17 USC 107: Fair use limitations on exclusive copyright right holder rights
2. American Library Association Model Policy Concerning College and University Photocopying for Classroom, Research and Library Reserve Use
3. Copyright Office Circular 21, “Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.”
4. CONFU (Conference on Fair Use) Fair-Use Guideline for Electronic Reserve Systems
   • All scanned material will include a coversheet with copyright statement and a full citation.
   • To seek copyright permission for a work, requires identifying the copyright holder(s) and contacting them for permission.  The Copyright Clearance Center and XANEDU.com are examples of paid services that can streamline this process. You may also find this guide from Stanford University and NOLO Press helpful. The Library can provide additional information about seeking permissions but does not have the resources to seek copyright permissions on the behalf of individual instructors.

Accessing Reserve items

• View the current status of a Reserve item.
• Custom Reserve content will be automatically embedded into your ECLearn module, or students can access all Reserves directly through the Library’s webpage.
• Scanned items will be available for online viewing only and will be password protected.  Items will not be able to be downloaded.

Removing an item

• All items will be removed from the Library’s Course Reserve platform at the end of each semester. 
• When an item is removed from the Library’s Course Reserve platform, the instructor will receive a user statistics report by email. A report can be provided upon request.