Reserves: Home

Reserves - Quick FAQ

Reserves -- also known as eReserves (electronic), Course Reserves, and Textbook Reserves -- are high demand books/materials assigned for classes. The library has, in the past, offered these books for 2-hour checkout, mostly in-building use, for students to scan and email the content to themselves. Due to Covid-19 and an increasingly digital world, Nielsen Library has begun scanning material for faculty to use. 

Most textbooks are too expensive -- and go out-of-date too quickly -- for the library to purchase. Faculty typically provide instructor copies of primary textbooks for this service. Supplemental texts may be owned by the library, or may be provided by the faculty.

For the foreseeable future, physical books will not be available for student checkout. We ask that faculty submit requests for digitization at least two weeks in advance.

Faculty,

The library has done its best to make this as quick and painless as possible. Compliance with copyright law is the only painful -- but necessary -- part of this new process.

1. We ask that, just as before, you bring the materials to the first floor Circulation Desk. They may be dropped off any time during operating hours. For Library-owned materials, please contact ANLandgon@adams.edu (Amanda Langdon, Reserves Manager) directly.
2. Our intake form has become a bit more complicated, because of copyright + Covid. We have to know what chapters you need by which dates in order to prioritize processing. "Whole book" is not something we can work with under both Copyright Law and staffing/workflows. We may be able to digitize whole books, but only on a chapter-by-chapter, over time, basis.
3. The intake form can be accessed in print at the Circulation Desk, or online via the eReserves Request Form. In lieu of the intake form, you can send your course syllabus with readings to ANLangdon@adams.edu for us to parse out the chapters/dates.
4. Once we have both the form and the book, we will scan chapters on a first-come, first-served + need-by date basis.
5. Once digitized, the material will be uploaded to our new eReserves platform, LibApps.
6. Each course will have an individual LibApps page, which can be accessed through Blackboard. 
7. Faculty will need to connect their Blackboard shell to LibApps:
   1. From your course's Blackboard page, in the dark menu on the left, at the very top, select the ⊕ icon to “Add Menu Item.” This will add a space for the new LibApps Content.
   2. From the popup menu, select “Tool Link.”
   3. Give it any name that makes sense to you: Readings, Course Reserves, Textbooks, etc.
   4. From the “Type” drop-down menu [default is “Achievements”], select “LibApps.” 
   5. Check the “Available to Users” checkbox to ensure students have access, and “Submit!"
   6. Using the four-way arrow icon, drag and drop the new menu item wherever you want it located. 
   7. Click on the link (in Student Preview or Faculty modes), and watch the magic work!
   8. A downloadable PDF of these steps with screen-captures is available below.