Guerrieri Academic Commons aerial view

SU Libraries Course Reserves

Student FAQ

Questions

Answers

What are Course Reserves?

Course reserves are materials that your professors have made available for you and your classmates to share for use in your courses. To be fair and help everyone have reliable access to the needed sources, we have short loan periods, the items can't be taken out of the library, and there are very strict fines for late returns. You are free to scan and print what you need to take home.

Physical reserves are available at the Library Service Desk in the Guerrieri Academic Commons. These items circulate for a short time (just 2 or 3 hours) and must be used in the library. This lets a class share a resource so you all don't have to buy your own copies.

Copies of some, but not all, required textbooks are available for short-term use in the library. (Some of these are personal copies on loan from your professors. If a textbook for your class is NOT on reserve, it doesn't hurt to ask your professor if he or she has an extra copy that could be loaned or donated to the library to use as a course reserve.)

What is "Digital Lending," and how can the library legally do it?
During Covid-closures when physical reserves were suspended, we experimented with Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) to make some reserves available online. This practice theoretically permits libraries to "loan out" a scan (that we make in-house, of our legally-owned physical library book) IN PLACE of our physical copy, while still adhering to copyright guidelines. (It is not the same as when libraries circulate e-books, which we must continually pay for access to on behalf of our students.) CDL loans must be controlled in such a way that the digital loan replicates the physical library loan. We can only have one digital copy available per each physical copy that we set aside and do NOT check out; we have to set limited loan periods in line with the typical loan periods of the books (2 hours); and we must ensure that reproduction, downloading, and printing of the scan is blocked. This means that only one student will be able to access each digital book at a time, and usage will be limited in the above ways, so it will be preferable to use MyClasses to share fair-use amounts of texts, if that can meet your needs.
How do students access "digital course reserves"?
During the 2020-2021 school year, we digitized some of our most popular course reserves. You can check out these digital book scans for two-hour loans, 24/7, from the Library Course Reserves web site. Because of copyright restrictions, only one person can access the online book at a time, and sharing/printing/downloading is disabled. In spite of the limitations, we hope that this service can make these textbooks more accessible. To see if an item is available to check out digitally, look up your item in this system and look to the right for its location -- it will be a shelf location for a physical reserve, and a "Check out" link if it is available digitally. Click that, and follow the prompts!
Where do students go to access their electronic course material?

The main place is through their MyClasses course page! These pages are designed and managed independently by each faculty member, and faculty are the only ones who post files in these pages (including COPYRIGHT-PROTECTED material). You can get assistance from ID&D if needed!

Through the LIBRARY homepage, students can directly get to SU-subscribed Ebooks or articles that are in SU-licensed databases. (Students should not try to go to journals or databases directly or via Google! They will be not get authenicated to access them except by starting on the SU Libraries website!) Faculty CAN post these links in their syllabi / MyClasses pages, so that students can efficiently get to all of their readings from one place, or instruct students to get familiar with the library search page.

Are my Textbooks available at the library?
Use this system to look up your textbook title, professor, or course number to see if the book you are looking for is one of our "Textbooks on Reserve." You can check out these books for 2 hours at a time and must use them in the building. Unfortunately, the library does not have the resources to purchase every book that our faculty assign as required texts for courses. We have established the Textbooks on Reserve Program in order to relieve some of the financial burden on students and help all students access the resources they need to succeed. We have purchased copies of the textbooks of selected courses to keep on reserve behind the Library Service Desk. The Dean selects these based on enrollment, with weight given to those courses with high withdraw/failure rates. In addition, many professors have brought in their own personal copies or their departments' extra copies for students to use through the Textbooks on Reserve Program. Over half of our Textbooks on Reserve are here because of generous faculty. If your course's textbook is not on reserve, please ask your instructor to loan the library any extra copies they have.
How do I get access to the books my professor has on reserve?

Just come up to the Library Service Desk, and tell a staff person that you would like to check out a Course Reserve. If you can provide the Shelf Name/Number of the item you want (for example, "Smith #10"), the staff person can quickly retrieve the item from the back and check it out to you. You can find this "location" information in our searchable Reserves catalog, to the right of the item's title.

We can also assist you when you come up to the desk with looking up the item in our Course Reserves system catalog on a service desk computer -- you will need to know the item's title, your professor's name, or your course number.

You must have your Gull Card (or the SU Gull Card Barcode app) to check out anything at the library.

What if my professor has a DVD on reserve?

Usually DVDs being used in courses have a 3-Hour checkout period, and can NOT be taken out of the building. When you check out the DVD, you can also check out an external DVD player and headphones, and watch the film on any computer in the GAC. Check out a laptop and find a comfortable couch or chair in the library, or watch the film on one the large screens in a reservable study room. You should also check for yourself to see if the film is currently available to stream online, or through one of our film databases, Kanopy or Swank.

How can students watch a DVD on reserve?

Usually, DVDs being used in courses have a 3-Hour check out period and can NOT be taken out of the building. When students check out the DVD, they can also check out an external DVD player and headphones and watch the film on any computer in the GAC. They can check out a laptop and find a comfortable couch or chair in the library or watch the film on one the large screens in a reservable study room.