Leganto - Course Reserves

Physical / Electronic Course Reserves:

• All Course Reserve requests must be placed through Leganto. 
• Course Reserves Staff is restricted to only using Mason-Owned, Open Access, or materials found freely available online for course reserve purposes.
• Course Reserves are unable to process word documents that contain a list of materials wanted for Course Reserves. All reserve requests must be made through 'Adding Items to Your List'.
• If Mason does not own material, Course Reserves Staff will look into the possibility of placing a rush purchase order request for the needed material. Faculty must use the "Reserve Purchase Order Tag" in their reading list for Reserves staff. 
  • Please note Course Reserves defaults to purchasing digital copies if possible. Not all publishers have to licensing for libraries to own digital copies. If unable to obtain a digital copy, Mason Libraries will purchase a physical copy. 
• For materials not currently owned by the University Libraries, faculty may temporarily provide an original copy to be held on physical reserve, until one is purchased by the libraries.
• Course Reserves Staff is unable to digitize media materials or whole books to place on e-reserve due to copyright restrictions.
• Requests are processed in the order they are received. We do try and prioritize requests that need a quicker turnaround time, if possible.
• Please place your course reserve requests a minimum of 3 weeks in advance to need within your classroom. 
  • Why? The Mason Reserves Team consists of a small staff so this allows adequate time for them to process and address any issues (copyright, item missing, item not owned, item checked out, etc.). 
  • Please note due to understaffing, processing times may vary. 

Copyright and Course Reserves

Some materials may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, United States Code) as "Fair Use". Learn more about Fair Use at the Copyright Resources Office. Items may be placed on course reserves with copyright permission pending. If copyright permission is subsequently denied, faculty are informed and the material is removed from Course Reserves.

Policies

The following Electronic Reserves and Copyright Procedures have been established by George Mason University Library

• Faculty may be limited by the number of copyrighted articles which may be digitized for electronic reserves for each course.
• Entire out-of-print books will not be digitized.
• Fair Use may apply for the digitization of up to three (3) articles from a single periodical volume, as long as these articles have not been previously placed on electronic reserve, been part of a course pack, or are already available in a library database.
• Students must login to Blackboard with their username and password to view electronic materials.  This ensures that materials are available only to authorized users.
• The full bibliographic citation must be visible on the first page of each document.

Copyright basics from Mason Publishing Group

Related subject guides:

• Copyright Issues when Shifting Your Course from In-Person to Remote

• Copyright Question Framework

• Media Collections & Services--Copyright

• Art and Images--Copyright

Physical Reserves: are books or media that faculty members place on temporary reserve for the semester to circulate for a shortened-loan period for their course. Items circulate as 2-hour, 4-hour (media only), 1-day, 3-day, or 7-loan periods. All physical reserves are located behind the information desks at the Fairfax, Mason Square, and Mercer libraries. 

Electronic Reserves (e-Reserves): are book chapters or articles that are requested by faculty to made electronically available via Blackboard. 

Permanent Reserves: The University Libraries has small “Permanent Reserve" collections.  These consist of items determined - based upon value, usage and/or theft patterns - to require restricted in-library-use only access. This is distinct from Course Reserves, which are linked to a specific course for the length of the term. If a faculty member thinks an item should be evaluated for Permanent Reserve, they need to contact their subject librarian.

TextSelect Reserves: are a semi-permanent reserves collection that is apart of GMU Libraries' TextSelect Program, a project to help address the cost of required textbooks. The Libraries' collection now includes required textbooks that exceed $50 for the following 100, 200, 300 & 400 level required courses.