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Course Reserves

What Are Course Reserves?


Course Reserves are books, DVDs, and other materials selected by instructors to be used in conjunction with Menlo courses. They are made available to students and faculty at no cost through the Bowman Library.  

 

Request Course Reserves


Submit a Course Reserve Request Form to put materials on reserve for your course. 

Textbook affordability and equity is a real issue for our students- Please donate a copy of any required textbook to the library for inclusion in course reserves, whenever possible. If the requested materials are not already owned by Bowman Library, we will attempt to purchase a copy. 

 

Course Reserve Request Form

 

Electronic Material Restrictions

The Library cannot provide e-versions of materials to students through the Course Reserve system, with exception to some texts the library can acquire in digital format based on publisher availability. Some digital texts are available to multiple simultaneous users, and some may be limited to one user at a time, based on the publisher's preferences. 

The library cannot provide passcodes or authorization keys to electronic textbooks sold as single user access (e.g. McGraw Hill eBooks). 

All article or chapter PDFs, as well as links to eBooks in the Library collection, should be uploaded directly to course Canvas pages for student access. 


 

Copyright and "Fair Use"

Bowman Library strives at all times to remain within the most current interpretation of copyright law. All photocopies and scanned materials must meet the Fair Use requirements as stated in Title 17, U.S. Code, sec. 107.

Fair use is a legal principle that defines the limitations on the exclusive rights of copyright holders. The purpose of these guidelines is to provide guidance on the application of fair use principles by educators, scholars, and student who use portions of copyrighted works under fair use rather than seeking authorization for non-commercial educational  uses. These guidelines apply only to fair use in the context of copyright  and to no other rights.

There is no simple test to determine what fair use is. Section 107 of the Copyright Act sets out four fair use factors that should be considered in each instance; to determine whether a use if "fair use" consider:

  • The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes.
  • The nature of the copyrighted work.
  • The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
  • The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

While only the courts can authoritatively determine whether a particular use is fair use, these guidelines represent conditions under which fair use should generally apply. Uses that exceed these guidelines may or may not be fair use. The more one exceeds these guidelines, the greater the risk that fair use does not apply.

Faculty members planning to upload digitized articles or documents to course Canvas pages should consider obtaining permission from copyright holders in the following instances:

  • Photocopied and scanned materials are uploaded to Canvas on a repeated basis, i.e., for more than one course, or in successive years for the same course.
  • Photocopied and scanned materials of more than one article, chapter, short story, short essay, or figure/illustration form a single work, or multiple articles or chapters that comprise more than 10% of the parent resource [book, periodical, newspaper, etc.].

A sample copyright permission letter is provided for faculty to use when requesting permission of publishers. 

The Library reserves the right to refuse materials determined to be in violation of the fair use doctrine of the Copyright Law as stated above. If you have any questions about copyright compliance, please contact the Bowman Library team  (libraryhelp@menlo.edu).


 

Usage Statistics

Usage statistics for course reserve materials are available upon request.