Placing Course Materials on Reserve for your Students

Supplemental Materials for Your Courses

As a faculty member, you can place books, videos, or other materials that you require or recommend for your students on reserve at the Circulation Desk. These items can be from the library or your personal collection. Please note that the library is not responsible for any loss or damage to personal items.

When placing a request, please allow three business days for us to process your request before sharing the assignment with your students. Requests are handled on a first-come, first-served basis.

For students to check out a course reserve, they’ll need their Hawkeye student ID, your name, and the title of the item they’re borrowing.

Reserve Request [PDF]

Guidelines for Course Reserves

You (the faculty member) may place the following on Course Reserve:

  • Copies of a your personally created materials such as PowerPoint slides, study guides, and sample tests.

  • A photocopy of a newspaper, magazine, or journal article.

  • A photocopy of a short story, short poem, or a book chapter.

  • A photocopy of an item such as a chart, graph, diagram, or cartoon.

You may place photocopies on reserve under the following conditions. You (the faculty member) must:

  1. Make the photocopy.

  2. Complete and submit the Reserve Request form [pdf] and the photocopied material.

  3. Include a copyright notice and full citation on the first page of the photocopy.

  4. Include written permission, for material such as student work examples, from the student(s) with your Reserve Request form.

The photocopy will remain on reserve for one semester and will be returned to the owner at the end of the semester unless you request and get permission from the copyright owner to place photocopied material on reserve for more than one semester. A copy of the written permission must be submitted to the Library Circulation Desk. See a sample permission request letter.

You may have one copy of an article or chapter per 25 students enrolled in the course. For example, if you have 53 students enrolled in two sections of your course, three copies of an individual article may be placed on course reserve.

Commercially produced videos owned by the Hawkeye Library or by yourself (the faculty member) may be placed on reserve.

Use this as an example and modify its format and the information you supply according to your needs. Keep a copy of the completed permission request letter on file. Use letterhead or supply your mailing address.

[Date]

[Publisher’s address]

Dear [Copyright Holder/Permissions editor]:

In conjunction with a course I am teaching at Hawkeye Community College, I would like to place the following material on the college’s library reserve system:

[Give complete citation, including page numbers]

This request is for [specify semester and year.] The material will be used for educational purposes only for the following course:

[Give department, course number and title, section number, and number of students enrolled.]

At the end of the indicated semester, the material will be removed from the library’s reserve system.

If you are not the copyright holder, I would appreciate any information you can provide regarding the current copyright holder.

Thank you for your prompt attention to my request. I have included a self-addressed, stamped envelope for your reply.

Sincerely,

[Signature]

[Your name typed]

[Give your contact information, including office telephone number, if not supplied in the letterhead.]

  • Interlibrary Loan items
  • Consumable workbooks
  • Course packets or anthologies
  • Any copy that has previously been on reserve that is lacking written copyright permission
  • Any unauthorized copies of copyrighted audio/visual materials

The Copyright Act permits the photocopying of copyrighted materials for educational purposes with the condition that the copying complies with “fair use” (Title 17 U.S. Code § 107.) Therefore, following factors must be considered:

  1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

  2. The nature of the copyrighted work;

  3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

  4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The Hawkeye Community College Library assumes that the copies submitted for reserve have been made by the faculty member in compliance with provisions of copyright law and the Library’s course reserve guidelines.

Copyright and Fair Use Resources

  • Copyright Basics

  • Copyright Clearance Center. “The Campus Guide to Copyright Compliance.”

  • Crews, Kenneth D. Copyright Essentials for Librarians and Educators. Chicago: ALA, 2000. [HCC Reference 346.0482 C927]

  • Russell, Carrie, ed. Complete Copyright: an Everyday Guide for Librarians. Chicago: ALA,2004. [HCC Reference 346.0482 C737]

  • U.S. Copyright Office

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