Course Reserves
Copyright Statement for Course Reserves
Library staff accept course reserve materials in compliance with U.S. Copyright Law. Copyrighted journal articles and other items which have been purchased or licensed by the Northeastern University Libraries in full-text form may be available electronically. Faculty are encouraged to identify and assign these articles whenever possible. If our vendor licenses permit, they create links to these articles via their classroom Blackboard accounts. For other copyrighted materials, faculty must be granted permission from the copyright holder before supplying the material to the library to be placed on reserve.
The university libraries provide a course reserve service to support the teaching activities of Northeastern University. This reserve policy statement sets forth the guidelines that regulate reserve materials. The libraries exercise the right to determine conditions of use and to refuse materials for reserve for legal or other reasons.
Guidelines for Faculty:
Article requests:
Faculty will assume responsibility for securing the necessary permissions for all materials they submit to the library to be placed on reserve for their respective course(s). Works in the public domain do not require permission: Source
The library will place on reserve a single copy of an article from a journal issue or a single book chapter that is 10% or less of the entire book. Each copy will be marked with a copyright notice indicating appropriate use. Faculty must provide all such copies to the library.
The library will place a reasonable number of articles on reserve for each course. A reasonable number is generally less than 10. Ten or more articles ought to be submitted as a course-pack. All course-pack requests must be submitted to NU Reprographics, as the publisher or rights holder of the material must be compensated via permission fees for the use of their materials. NU Reprographics will collect the necessary permissions and make the item available for purchase in the bookstore. Faculty may submit a copy of the course-pack to the library to be placed on reserve.
Faculty members are encouraged to use their classroom Blackboard accounts to create links to journal articles contained within the Northeastern University Libraries’ electronic subscription packages.
Book Requests:
The library will place on reserve titles which are owned by Snell Library, or supplied by the faculty member as personal copies. If a faculty member would like to place an item on reserve that is not owned by the library, the library will attempt to purchase the item. Books belonging to other libraries cannot be placed on reserve.
Textbook Requests:
The library is unable to purchase textbooks for course reserves. All textbooks should be made available for students to purchase in the NU bookstore. Faculty are welcome to submit personal copies of textbooks (including publishers’ desk copies) to the library to be placed on reserve.
Media Requests:
Faculty should submit media requests to the library in the same manner as book requests, following the same guidelines as for print reserves. To ensure the availability of media materials for classroom viewing, we recommend that faculty submit these tittles as reserve requests before the beginning of the semester.
Additional Media Guidelines:
Additional copyright guidelines govern the use of media materials placed on reserve. Media materials, once placed on reserve, are limited to classroom use only.
Since library course reserves are considered to be an extension of the classroom, use of these items is restricted only to those students currently enrolled in the class. To ensure compliance, the library will email faculty a password for their course. Faculty will be responsible for distributing the password to the students enrolled in their classes. Students will need to use the password, when requesting these reserve materials from the library.
General Information:
It is the responsibility of faculty to submit their reserve requests before the start of each semester. Reserve items are kept for one semester only. Personal copies will be returned to the professor at end of each semester. The library cannot be held responsible for any lost or damaged items.
Please note that Reserves is for the use of required readings only. The library will be happy to place on reserve a bibliography of any recommended or supplementary readings.
