Zahnow Library E-Reserves Policy
The Melvin J. Zahnow Library operates an e-reserve module that can be placed in your Canvas courses to provide book chapters and articles for your students. All e-reserve items are governed by relevant copyright law and content provider licenses. For US Copyright Law, see sections 107 and 108 of the Title 17 of the US Code, and the Copyright Alternative to Small Claims Enforcement (CASE Act of 2020).
The policies observed by the Library are as follows:
General
- A copyright notice and citation must appear on all documents in the e-reserve module, which will be inserted by Library Staff.
- Content will be removed from each e-reserve module at the close of each semester; and therefore, content will not be left available until the next time the class runs.
- The age of the content does not impact copyright protection unless the item is in the public domain. Professors must also take into consideration if the item was published outside the United States. See this chart for more details as to when copyright will expire.
- Each book chapter and article cannot be posted more than six semesters due to impacts on the commercial market. Please contact your liaison librarian if you would like help looking for different material to use.
- Course packs prepared by the bookstore or at another commercial entity cannot be posted as those violate fair use.
- Full supplements will not be posted.
- Consumables (i.e. workbooks, exercises, test booklets, etc.) do not fall under fair use and will not be posted.
- The Library reserves the right to refuse to post any materials that may violate Fair Use and Educational clauses of US Copyright Law.
- The Library and its staff are not liable for copyright violations related to materials professors and instructors post directly in their Canvas courses.
Book Chapters and Articles
- If an item a professor wants to use is not available via the Library databases or in Library collections, the professor must provide proof that permission to use and/or of payment of copyright fees for the materials to be used in e-reserves. These permissions and fees will need to be obtained and paid each academic term the materials are used. (I.e. If professors are using the content for classes in both the Fall and Winter term of the same academic year, they will need to get permission twice and pay the fees twice.) Each publisher has their own provisions for securing rights and paying copyright fees. Contact the publisher for details.
- Book chapters posted cannot exceed 10% of the total book. This includes situations where professors use more than one chapter from the same title. (I.e. If a book is 200 pages long, no more than 20 pages total will be posted – no matter how many chapters are involved.)
- Book chapters will be scanned by Library staff. If the book is a professor’s personal copy, the professor can provide the physical copy to the Library to scan, or consider placing the entire book on physical reserve (rather than e-reserve).
- Articles must be currently available via Library databases content. Library staff will examine the content provider licenses to ensure license allowances. If the license allows for content to be placed in e-reserves, a permanent stable link will be posted in the Canvas module.
- Articles retrieved via interlibrary loan are for individual use and cannot be posted to the e-reserves module.
- Only two articles from a journal issue may be used during the same semester and class.
This policy is informed by the E-Reserve policies held by Western Michigan University, Cornell University, George Mason University, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Texas at Austin.
