Reserves - For Faculty & Instructors

Electronic Reserves

Faculty are encouraged to actively participate in the management of their Electronic Reserves course pages by transferring word processing documents like syllabi and homework assignments, adding URLs, and posting other communications directly to the system.

While the Electronic Reserves system uses the University’s NetID authentication to restrict access to current students, we require faculty set a course password for all Electronic Reserves courses. The library will assign a password if one is not specified by the instructor. Instructor are responsible for distributing the password to students.

Faculty members who upload electronic files for electronic reserves should take into account the retrieval facilities available to students in the course. File size and format have an impact on downloading and printing. Library reserve staff members are available to provide guidance on optimal file size and formats.

The Libraries provides an online PowerPoint tutorial that covers all of the Electronic Reserves system’s functions. Faculty are encouraged to go through the tutorial.

Contact reserve staff with questions related to electronic reserves submissions.

Placing Materials on Reserve

Paperless Reserves Request Form

To place items on electronic or traditional reserve, faculty may:

• Bring items to either the University or Dewey Library and complete reserve request form. (University Library reserves staff complete processing for Science Library reserves also.) Do not check items out to yourself, but instead, bring items directly from the shelves to reserves staff.
• Mail items to the Library accompanied by a completed reserve request form
• Request that reserves staff pull library items from the stacks by completing a reserve request form (use either a paper form or the online form).

If you have difficulty locating a periodical, or if a book from the circulating collection appears to be missing, please contact Reserves staff for assistance, and they will make arrangements for holds, recalls, and searches. Recalls placed by the Library for items requested for reserve take priority over user-placed recalls and will be placed first.

Personal copy items are physically processed to identify them as Reserve items. This includes adhering stickers and labels to the item. The Library does not assume responsibility for replacing worn, damaged or missing items. If you are not prepared for this risk, please do not put your personal property on reserve.

Faculty are encouraged to refrain from placing high-priced textbooks on reserve due to recent incidents of theft and hoarding.

Placing Media on Reserve

The Libraries can place media on short loan periods (3 hour) but cannot guarantee that materials remain in the building at all times. Please consider this risk when placing personal copy materials on reserve.

The Interactive Media Center will make available particular software titles on one or more workstations (depending on license restrictions) as a function of reserve services. To make these arrangements, contact Regina Contact, IMC Coordinator by phone at 442-3608 or by email at

Submitting a Reserve Request

• Journal articles
• Faculty provide full citation, including journal call number if known.
• Library staff will check for online availability and add to Electronic Reserves as a link
• If available only in print or microform, library staff will scan and post to Electronic Reserves as a PDF file.
• Adherence to Fair Use Guidelines is enforced (one article per issue).
• Library owned books and media
• Faculty provide title and call number
• Library staff will retrieve from shelf or recall and put on reserve.

Incorrect citations will cause delays. Processing deadline guarantees are suspended while citations problems are being resolved.

The paperless reserves service is intended for faculty instructional needs. The Libraries offer a document delivery service intended to meet faculty's research needs. Document delivery provides campus delivery of books and electronic desktop delivery of journal articles and other materials. For more information on document delivery services, go to http://library.albany.edu/about/delivery.html.

Deadlines for Submitting Reserve Requests

Lists are processed in the order in which they are received. Reserve materials are accepted throughout the session or semester. To ensure that all items needed are on reserve by the beginning of each semester, we recommend submitting reserve request lists and all materials at least two weeks before the start of the semester. If the University Libraries must purchase an item requested for Reserve, expect a minimum of 90 days before it is ready for use.