CDL- Summary of Electronic Reserves Responses

From: Lynn Sipe <lsipe_at_usc.edu>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 13:36:45 -0700
To: COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu
From: "Hale, Kim" <khale_at_colum.edu>

Thanks to all who responded to my inquiry regarding Ereserves.  As 
expected, the responses run the gamut; from those who absorb the costs, to 
those who require the departments to offset the cost.  I am submitting all 
the responses received, but removing identifiable information as a precaution.

Hopefully this will be as helpful to you as it will be for us.

Best,

Kim

Kimberly A. Hale, Head of Collection Management
Library, Columbia College Chicago
624 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605
Phone: 312-344-7355
Fax:     312-344-8062
Email:  <mailto:khale_at_colum.edu>khale_at_colum.edu
http://www.lib.colum.edu
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LIBRARY #1

Does your library absorb the entire cost (as we do at this point)?

Our library does not absorb any costs.  Royalties and permissions costs are 
borne by the academic departments.

Do your academic departments contribute to the costs in any way?

Yes, all costs.

Do you place limits on the number of articles placed by faculty on e-reserve?

We stopped using e-reserves.

Or have you developed something completely different?

It is now the faculty members' responsibility to post their e-reserves to 
the Moodle pages for their courses.  The library will assist with getting 
copyright permissions; however, we do not pay the royalties.

LIBRARY #2

"We follow "Fair use" practices that cover academic libraries and teaching 
institutions. Fair use practices go a long way to reduce copyright 
permission expenses. The material made available through our electronic 
reserve is only available to the faculty member and the current semester 
class members.  No one else is given the access information so the use is 
very limited in that manner. Currently there is no budget in electronic 
reserves to pay for permissions.

  "Does your library absorb the entire cost (as we do at this point)?

  "We have sometimes absorbed the cost on rare occasions. An example would 
be when large amounts of a book or publication are needed that go beyond 
fair use. However, currently we ask faculty to obtain permission for use 
for their classes. Permission is often granted with no fee involved. Often 
it is limited to a semester. That is why everything for a given class is 
removed from access at the conclusion of classes for the semester. A copy 
of permission is kept in the permanent hard copy folder for individual 
faculty and classes.

"Do your academic departments contribute to the costs in any way?

"Most often, we require the permission to be obtained by the faculty 
member. They may go through their departments for fees at this time.
  "Do you place limits on the number of articles placed by faculty on 
e-reserve?

"Our policy is to put 25 articles up for a class. We may take down some 
material to accommodate more readings, but the total remains at 25. We do 
not include class materials in that number, that is not counted.

"Or have you developed something completely different?

"The material is not openly available to all library patrons when on our 
electronic reserves. Material has limited access to only the faculty member 
and the current class members and is up on an internal library web site.



LIBRARY #3

Does your library absorb the entire cost (as we do at this point)?

Using Fair Use practices helps to alleviate the cost of copyright 
permissions.  Often instructors use materials that are available through 
online collections.  The library makes all requests for copyright 
permission and absorbs the associated costs.  We contact the rights holder 
directly, and generally they are willing to waive the fee for a 
semester.  Our electronic reserves are only available to students 
registered for the course.

Do your academic departments contribute to the costs in any way?

No, our academic departments do not contribute to the costs.  However, we 
work closely with the instructors about the materials they designate for 
electronic course reserve. We are using more electronic books and 
journals.  Now that the materials are available online, instructors are 
inclined to post only the portions of a text that they will actually use in 
the classroom.
Do you place limits on the number of articles placed by faculty on e-reserve?

We have discussed this possibility for work flow reasons, but it has not 
yet become necessary.
Or have you developed something completely different?

We have an established deadline six weeks prior to the start of the 
semester.  Instructors who meet the deadline are assured that their 
materials will be available the first day of classes.  Though we have an 
established deadline for requests, we accept new submission through the end 
of the term.  Since all the material is not submitted at once, we have been 
able to manage work flow and not place limits on instructors.



COMMENTS:



We have been offering e-reserves since 2002.  Here are the ways we've been 
able to save costs.



1.  We check every article or chapter that comes in to see if it is 
available through one of our electronic databases or e-books.  We're 
finding that there is more full text material available every semester.  We 
make sure when we negotiate licenses to electronic material that it 
includes permission to use it in e-reserves courses.



2.  We have set a limit on what we will pay for an article.  If a price 
quote through Copyright Clearance Center comes to more than that limit, 
then we offer the following options.

a. We pay up to our limit and the faculty member pays the difference

b. Our reference librarian helps the faculty member find a substitute full 
text article in one of our databases to use instead.

c. We ask the professor to get in touch with the rights holder 
directly.  You'd be surprised how often a publication, especially a 
specialty one, will allow a faculty member to put items on for free. We 
always offer to put a link to their website on the course webpage so the 
students in the class can browse the journal beyond the article the 
professor wants to use and that's always very popular with some of the 
smaller publications.
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So far we absorb them all and don't put any restrictions on the 
faculty.  As you know, it's not cheap, but I believe it's an essential 
service at this point. I think of the cost of electronic reserves (and also 
of ILL) as part of our overall collection costs. We have enough experience 
now so the copyright fees are fairly predictable and I take them into 
account when planning my materials (acquisitions) budgets.

If I weren't able to cover the copyright costs, I'd talk to the academic 
v-p (my boss) about charging some portion back to the academic department 
budgets. I think the value of electronic reserves is recognized by the 
faculty and upper administration and that we'd get the additional support 
if it was needed.
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We do not absorb any copyright cost for EReserves.  We provide Docutek and 
will manage their pages if they prefer but the department or the individual 
is responsible for any copyright fees.  We required they sign or 
electronically agree to a copyright statement when submitting their request 
for a course page.

We maintain the copyright records and make them aware if an item exceeds 
copyright and fees need to be paid.  We will use our copyright center 
account to obtain the fee when possible.  The account is also used for 
payment but they or their department reimburse the library for those charges.
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We used to use a home-grown e-reserves system, and all of the problems you 
mention were connected with that. We now use only Moodle, our course 
management system. The library still handles the scanning and will set up a 
Moodle site for a prof even if the only use he/she makes of it is to have 
their e-reserves there. This goes a long way to get into compliance with 
copyright, since only the class members (not the whole student body) can 
see the articles for that class.
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We limit to $100 per item, but there's no total limit for a course or a 
professor. We report the total cost to faculty, and a few have said they 
would do coursepacks in the future to pass costs along to students. That's 
a shame, really, because the bookstore has to seek permission to reprint 
things the library subscribes to online (i.e., when readings are a mix of 
links to journal articles and scanned chapters from books).

I agree it's an essential service, and it's quite a mess in terms of 
policy. We're trying to come up with a more visual display for the 
information so faculty understand their options and costs better. And our 
Vice President for Teaching and Learning Resources is planning to request a 
separate budget line so this isn't coming out of the materials budget.
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I called the person in charge of reserves and other document delivery and 
copyright issues at (Library X) and she said she'd been talking with the 
person at (Library Y).  Everyone is scrambling to figure out funding for 
this and the costs seem to be rising, but if we want faculty to abide by 
copyright law and provide access, the funding has to be there from 
someplace.  Some faculty at (Library X) are going to publisher authorized 
course packs, but then students end up paying for some things that they 
have already paid for in the databases since the packs require separate 
permissions.
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I don't know what the cost is for our e-reserves system, but the library 
pays the cost, no charge to departments.  We don't have a limit on the 
number of items faculty can place on e-reserve; the only limits are that 
copyright information has to be included, and entire books won't be 
scanned.  (I'm not certain what percentage of a book's contents, requested 
to be placed on e-reserve, would prompt staff to suggest to faculty that 
print reserve would be more appropriate.)



Our library serves a campus with a primarily undergraduate population (some 
master's programs), FTE of about 9,500.
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We started running e-res about 3 yrs ago too.  We require faculty to sign a 
waiver indicating that they have received permission prior to sending the 
materials to us to be digitized.



I spoke with someone at another library about the same concern you're 
having now, before implementation.  We luckily avoided any budgetary conflicts.



Right now, we have no limits on materials. We have no policy either.  We're 
just winning the bet that because we're so small, we'll be able to handle 
demand with our existing resources.
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 From a policy handbook



G. Library reserves



--snip--
In the case of electronic reserves, to the extent reasonable and 
technologically feasible: Access to the copy will be limited to enrolled 
students only. The copy will be made inaccessible after the course is 
finished. The copy will not be further disseminated
Received on Tue May 08 2007 - 00:48:46 EDT