Course Reserves

A fundamental part of our mission at UNG Libraries is providing service to the UNG community.

Course Reserves is a part of that service and is informed by, and adheres to, the USG Copyright policies, in that we “facilitate compliance with copyright law and, where appropriate, the exercise in good faith of full fair use rights by faculty and staff in teaching, research, and service activities.”

The UNG Libraries accomplish this task by providing information and education on relevant copyright laws, and their applications in higher education. We do this in support of faculty and staff since, according to the USG policy, it is ultimately their responsibility to determine if their proposed use of a copyrighted work is in compliance with the current legal code and copyright law.

Right to Refuse

The libraries reserve the right to refuse to reserve items when, in our opinion, such use would weigh against fair use. For more information on fair use and how copyright law affects course reserves, please visit the Fair Use and TEACH Act section.

UNG Libraries strive to ensure that students and faculty will have timely access to their course reserves content and are done in a uniform manner at all UNG libraries.

Faculty are required to allow five business days for course reserves to be processed. All course reserves are requested via our Course Reserve Request form.

Reserves have to be renewed each semester. There are no standing or permanent reserves.

Faculty shall pick up personal items at the end of the semester unless arrangements have been made with designated library staff. Library staff will work to ensure the safety of personal faculty items, but may not be held liable in case of loss.

If requesting copyright-cleared content, the request must include a copy of the dated copyright holders’ permission which includes the time frame for which the content may be used for reserves. Information on requesting permissions and permission templates can be found on the Copyright Services page. Permissions must be in writing; verbal permission is not accepted.

The submitted Course Reserve Request form must include bibliographic citations as they appear on the faculty’s course syllabus in order to be processed for reserves.

To simplify this requirement faculty may attach the bibliography page from the current, dated course syllabus to the request form as long as it has complete citations for all books requested to include:

• author
• title
• edition
• publisher
• publication date

Faculty shall review the:

Course Reserves Procedure

1. Course reserves policy information
2. Pre-checklist for Physical Reserves
3. Submit the Course Reserve Request form with items to designated library staff or Circulation desk.
4. Allow five days for processing before sending students to check out reserves.

(Not required for books or DVDs.)

• Faculty should check to see whether materials submitted for physical reserves are available through the library’s database or are otherwise legally available electronically. 
• Faculty should make a careful and reasonable research of the content to determine if it is in the Public Domain (pre-1923) or may otherwise be unprotected by copyright as in the case of federal government work.
• Faculty should make a careful and reasonable analysis using the Fair Use checklist, to verify if the proposed use as a course reserve, or as an excerpt uploaded to is covered under the fair use tenets. Faculty should print and save a copy of the completed checklist for their records.
• If none of the above cases apply, permission shall be obtained to use copyrighted content from the legal copyright holder before requesting content be reserved.