The Library is ready to help you prepare for fall courses with course readings accessible to all your students -- whether they are on campus or learning remotely. Notably, the Library will not be accepting print or other analog materials (such as a DVD) for course reserves for the remainder of this calendar year. Even if we return to campus for some on-site services in fall, it is clear that some (perhaps many) students will not be with us in person. That said, the Library is still providing course reserve support – just focused on content that can be provided online. While we in the Library are working remotely, we developed a new service to help you make as many of your course readings available online as possible -- and it is free to you.
Digital Access to Course Materials
You are invited to send your syllabi (and related list of course pack readings) for fall courses to ereserves@lists.berkeley.edu. We will investigate whether the materials are available from the content we license (or are otherwise already online), as well as see what we might be able to acquire. We’ll return to you a summary of our findings, including the links to the items we found.
For items that we cannot license or acquire for you, we may be able to scan print materials that we own if they are available on the shelves in libraries that we are able to access (a limited number at this point, but it does include the Main (Gardner) Stacks). Your lists can also include media requests, and we’ll investigate those too.
Textbooks and Self-Publishing
Textbooks present many problems. The Library is often unable to purchase multiple user copies at a reasonable price due to publisher models and pricing and in some cases publishers will license their e-content only to individuals, not libraries. We will be gathering data about all the requests we receive to help inform future campus conversations on that issue; we are also investigating opportunities with some publishers for special arrangements.
As an alternative, the Library supports the Pressbooks platform for instructors who are interested in creating an open textbook or other digital versions of their own content. Or browse our guide to free, open, and affordable course materials for other ideas.
Online Research Workshops and Consultations for Your Students
To provide the greatest flexibility and broadest reach for students, we have moved our instruction and consultations online too. I am prepared to teach research workshops to your classes and provide research consultations for your students via Zoom. Please contact me with any queries about library support I could provide for your courses.