eReserve Information for Faculty

Requests and Processing

• You may email your materials request or provide us with a copy of your course syllabus or reading list. Materials may be emailed as PDFs or dropped off as clean photocopies at any campus library. You may also submit a flash drive or CD-ROM. To avoid copyright issues, we ask that you do not submit more than 20% of any given text. For further information about copyright, see Copyright, Licenses, and Permissions below.
• For scanned or photocopied materials, include the Notice of Copyright in any copied documents you submit (in accordance with the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act). In books, it appears on the back of the title page. For articles, it may be printed on the article's title page or near the journal's table of contents. The Notice of Copyright looks like this: © 2004 by The Modern Language Association of America
• Articles available through the U of MN library’s e-journals databases are posted to your course page as persistent links. To add them, we need the article’s full citation.
• If you’ve had an eReserves page in the past and want it reactivated for a new semester, just email us. If your readings have changed, send an updated syllabus or reading list. You don’t need to re-submit readings that were posted for a previous semester.
• After your eReserves page has been activated, we’ll send a confirmation email with the page’s persistent URL and password. It is your responsibility to distribute the URL and password to your students.
• eReserve requests are generally processed within 24 hours except during busy periods near the start of a new semester. In these cases, we use assignment due dates to prioritize the workflow queue for posting. Therefore, it is helpful to include the date by which readings must be posted.
• eReserves may be accessed online through the persistent URL for your course, the Library Course Page, or the eReserves system. The preferred compatible browser is Mozilla Firefox. Do not use Safari as your web browser. You also need the most up-to-date version of Adobe Reader.

If you’re having trouble viewing your eReserves page or readings, please contact one of the reserve sites listed above right or visit our FAQ page.

Copyright, Licenses, and Permissions

For questions about copyright and help obtaining permissions, contact the U of MN Copyright Permissions Center.

Conditions of Use: Materials may be copied and made available for course reserves under four common conditions:

• In the public domain; or
• Used with permission from the copyright holder; or
• Used under the provisions of a contract or license agreement , noting that agreements may differ from, and often take precedence over, what is allowed under copyright law; or
• Used under the provision of Fair Use (U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 107), as outlined in the Classroom Guidelines or as determined using a case-by-case four-factor analysis.

Instructor Responsibilities: Course reserve materials are routinely subject to controls that restrict access to registered students and their instructors. In some cases, materials may be made available after an assessment by the instructor that such a use is a fair use under copyright law. All such uses are based on the Libraries' General Principles of Fair Use in Education and Policy on Fair Use of Copyrighted Works.

When copyrighted works are used for reserves under the provisions of Fair Use (Section 107), instructors are responsible for:

• Ensuring all materials used support course-related teaching, scholarship, or research.
• Determining, on a case-by-case basis, whether the use of a copyrighted work requires permission or qualifies as fair use. Such a determination requires a working knowledge of the principles & applications of fair use. University Libraries staff can provide some consultation on the relevant issues. Educational information on fair use, and an online tool for documenting fair use analysis, are available on our site.
• Making arrangements for permissions when they are needed.
• Copying only the amount of a material needed to accomplish the specific educational purpose. In consultation with library staff, instructors will determine any limits on the amount of material to be used.