Processes to Shift / Stop: Course Reserves Discussion
Course Reserves Operational Definition
Materials that faculty put in the library for students to use. These materials may
be books or electronic resources.
Note: participants indicated that most concerns were around electronic
resources rather than physical items like books.
Positive aspects of Course Reserves
• Saves students money
• Provides access to material that may otherwise be unavailable
• Ensures compliance with copyright
• Provides remote access (if electronic)
• Less work for faculty as administrative support is provided by library staff
• Provides access to dispersed content for interdisciplinary courses
• Allows for other media
• Faculty can put things on reserve that the library doesn’t own
Negative aspects of Course Reserves
• Labor intensive/costly to library
• One more place for students to go to get materials
• New services and technologies have emerged that might make the service
redundant
• Faculty can get around copyright
• Password to Reserve is another barrier for students
• Sharing means materials may be checked out
• Course reserves that are overdue are charged (sometimes by the hour or
minute) which can be costly for students
Positive aspects of discontinuing or shifting the responsibility of course
reserves
• Save the library money
• Spend more time doing library instruction
• Develop more expertise to consult on copyright in other areas
• Could shift resources used to handle course reserve to other library duties
• Buy content you don’t have
• Buy self ready books
OLE Project BPM Workshop – Utah – January 14-15, 2009

• Shift copyright management responsibility to departments
• Save student time
• Instead of spending time creating temporary digitized content could create
more permanent collection
Negative aspects of discontinuing or shifting the responsibility of course
reserves
• Exposure to litigation
• Significant change for faculty (scanning, learning Blackboard, uploading
files)
• Would require a lot of PR to successfully implement change
• There would be uneven support for different departments across campus
• Negative for students who can’t afford text books
• Formatting problems when faculty create/upload files
OLE Project BPM Workshop – Utah – January 14-15, 2009