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Leganto (Course Reserves)

Course Reserve Policies

Course Reserve Policies
1. All Course Reserve requests must be placed through Leganto following the 5 steps outlined in 'Get Started with Leganto'.
2. Course Reserves are restricted by copyright to use only materials that are 1) owned by GMU Libraries, 2) Open Access, or 3) found freely available online for course reserve purposes. 

3. Course Reserves will investigate the possibility of placing a rush purchase order request for materials not owned by GMU Libraries.

  • Faculty must use the "Reserve Purchase Order" tag on the citation for the material in their reading list to indicate this need to Course Reserves staff (see, Step 3).
Faculty may temporarily provide a personal copy to be held on physical reserve only if one is purchased by the libraries. This must be coordinated with Course Reserves (and the Media Librarian if media materials are involved). Course Reserves is not allowed to place personal copies on reserve in any other circumstance.

4. Course Reserves are unable to digitize media materials or whole books to be placed on e-reserve due to copyright restrictions. 

Visit the Media Collection - Faculty Services page if you are interested in potential digital access to films. 
5. If possible, Course Reserves staff tries to prioritize requests when indicated that they need a quicker turnaround time. 

6. 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. This allows them adequate time to process and address any issues (copyright, item missing, item not owned, recalls, etc.). Please note that based on potential issues, processing times may vary for some requests. 
7. All faculty are encouraged to contact the Assistive Technology Initiative (ATI) and work with the Office of Disability Services when students need accommodations made for course materials. The Reserve Team is able to provide any requested course reserve materials to ATI so that they may be made accessible. 

The Basics of Copyright

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

 

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