Reserve Guidelines for Faculty

We collaborate with professors across disciplines to reserve and supply supplementary materials that enhance student success with our Course Reserves.

On-Site Reserves

On-Site Reserves are held at UTA Libraries locations and assigned short loan periods to make them available to as many students as possible. 

  • You may request that a complete book from our stacks be placed on On-site Reserves. If the library does not own a book you wish to place on reserves, you may request that the library purchase a copy for our collection. There is one exception; the library will not purchase textbooks for placement on reserves.
  • Reserve copies should be a small part of the materials required for a course and obtained legally by the faculty member or the library through purchase, license, fair use, etc. 
  • Reserve articles should not substitute for the purchase of a textbook. 
  • Copies of copyrighted materials placed on reserve can be: a single article or chapter; a short story, poem or essay; or a few graphs, charts or pictures. 

  • Reserve copies should include any copyright notice on the original, complete citation and attributions to the source, and a section 108(f)(l) copyright notice. 

  • Access to copies, whether paper or electronic, should be limited to students enrolled in the class and administrative staff as needed. Access is to be terminated at the end of the class term. 

  • If the original work is placed on reserve (a book or journal issue for example) then copyright permission does not have to be sought.
  • Photocopies of entire works and course packs will not be placed on reserve.

Electronic Reserves

Electronic Reserves (E-reserves) provide students with online access to your course readings.

You may submit single chapters of books and journal articles to be scanned and placed on E-reserves for your course. If UTA Libraries does not own an article being requested and if you do not own a personal copy, reserves staff will order the article via Interlibrary Loan. Please note that only up to 20% of the content from a book can be placed on E-reserves. Currently, audio files and DVDs cannot be placed on E-reserves. 

Guided by the On-Site Copyright guidelines above, for E-reserves we: 

  • Digitize and make available, at the request of the instructor, copyright protected material within Fair Use guidelines, including an accompanying copyright statement, the copyright notice on the original, and appropriate citations and attributions to the source.
  • Follow any restrictions of the copyright holder(s) as specified by the terms of the permission.
  • Determine if an article to be placed on reserve is already available electronically and, if our licensing agreement allows, we will point to that location from the reserve list instead of scanning and posting the article.

The UTA Libraries provides the following copyright notice with the E-reserves materials to which we provide access: 

Copying, displaying and distributing copyrighted works may infringe the owner's copyright. The University of Texas System's policy statement on "Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials" can help you determine whether your use of a copyrighted work may be an infringement. Any use of computer or duplicating facilities by students, faculty or staff for infringing use of copyrighted works is subject to appropriate disciplinary action as well as those civil remedies and criminal penalties provided by federal law.

Frequently Asked Questions

To request reserves, please go to our online form and submit your reserves request or go to the appropriate Service Desk (Cen/AFA/SEL) and fill out the Reserves Request Form. There is a 25-item limit per course for items being placed on reserves.  

The Learning Resources Librarian and other OER Department staff will provide online and on-site access to your supplemental course materials for the Central Library, West Campus Library, and the Science & Engineering Library.

It typically takes 7 business days to process reserves. Reserves Requests are processed in the order they are received. You should begin the reserves process at least three weeks before the first class day of the semester. The sooner you submit your request, the greater the chance that it will be available by the beginning of the semester.  

Depending on the location that the faculty member selects, students can obtain their Course Reserves either at the service desk at the Central Library, the Architecture & Fine Arts Library or the Science & Engineering Library.

Most Reserve materials must remain in the library. If there is an exception to this, the Reserve item will be labeled accordingly.

You may request your material be assigned any of the following loan periods: 2 hours, 3 hours, 24 hours, or 3 days. When more than one instructor requests that a given item be placed on Reserve, it will usually be placed on the shortest loan period requested.  

Yes, you may place your own personal DVDs or books on Reserves; however, be aware that personal items will be processed for use including the addition of labels and date due slips. UTA Libraries will not be held financially liable for any damages or loss of personal materials placed on Reserves.  

Yes, items on Reserves will be removed two weeks after the end of the semester. It is the responsibility of the instructor to notify the Reserve staff before the end of the current semester if items must remain on Reserve for the succeeding semester. Instructors will be notified when they may retrieve personal materials which are no longer needed for Reserves.