As we are wrapping up the first few weeks of the semester it is a reminder that students are still struggling to get course materials. For many students the price of the textbooks is a major barrier to access. While some students wait for their next paycheck, or financial aid check, others go without the materials at all. It is not really a choice when students are deciding between rent/food and course materials. Unfortunately, without access to the required course materials students do not feel as engaged in class or get a quality education. 

Students do not need to feel alone. Course Reserves is one of the services, at the UTA Libraries, that support student success by providing an alternative to purchasing course materials.   

What is Course Reserves?  

Course Reserves (reserves) is a collection of physical and electronic materials that are required for UTA courses. Physical materials are available to the students for shorter loan periods, so that more students can have equitable access to them over the course of the semester. Course reserves are an alternative to purchasing course material, reducing the financial stress to students. This service is not only useful as an alternative to purchasing materials, but it supports temporary needs to access resources.   

Finding available resources is so easy! Either search the Library Catalog to directly find materials or search the Course Reserve Catalog to specifically search course specific reading lists. Reading Lists provide valuable information, like showing all available resources, resource status, and location.  

For physical resources there are 7 total course reserve locations. One at each library branch, just check with the library staff at the primary service desk, near the front doors. In addition, there are lending machines available on campus, at the West Campus Parking Garage, and outside the Engineering Lab Building near Nedderman Hall, so students can access or return materials at their convenance. Please know that you need to return an item to the same location it was checked out from. In addition to the front desk, the Central Library has a lending machine on the 1^st floor, north side and is working to expand reserves to the Basement - Games and Learning services. Each physical item has a different location that you can find once signing into the library website and looking under the location items section of the item page. [Example of the image below.] For more information about the different locations please visit Course Reserves | UTA Libraries. 

For electronic reserves on the item page there will indicate that the resource is available online. Under the section view online there will be at least one direct link to the resource. To access the resources, sign in using their UTA email and password to access the resources.  

For Faculty, please submit a Faculty Reserve Request Form every semester so that the Course Reserve team can process the records accurately and the students can maintain easy access to the required materials.  

Limitations in Course Reserves, is the Advantage of OER

Course Reserves is one of the services through the Libraries that helps to reduce the cost of course material, but its capacity is limited based on what resources are available. We at the Libraries recognize we cannot afford to purchase course material for each course, let alone for each student in those classes. In response, the Libraries work to promote the adoption, modification, and creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) for UTA courses. OER are free, online, quality, educational, resources that are easy for students to access, in addition to providing faculty the flexibility to customize, update, incorporate mixed mediums, copy and distribute resources freely to their students. OER reduces the need to purchase materials for all students, in addition to students being able to access what is needed day one of the class. If you're interested in learning more about the benefits and how to incorporate OER into your courses please reach out to the Open Educational Resources and Digital Scholarship Department, by emailing: library-open@listserv.uta.edu. There are grant options for faculty to implement OER in their course for more information look at the UTA CARES Grant Program. 

Policy Changes: Student Success and Documentation

Course reserve services have gone through a process of evaluation, feedback, and revision in 2024, resulting in a new Course Reserves Policy to establish clarity, transparency and expectations for the service. For the most part our services have stayed the same, just a few changes were made to promote student success as well as establish documentation for legacy records.  

Information for students 

Resources previously listed as 2-hour loans have been changed to 4 hours to allow students more time to utilize the materials as needed. We are no longer restricted to library use only but it is the student’s responsibility to return the item back on time and in good condition. We will still have the 24 hours, 3 days and 7-day reserves. The loan period varies by the resource, please review the email you receive at checkout.  

We are still not allowing renewals for resources but will allow re-checks based on the need of the resource. If a request for a re-check is denied a user will need to wait 2 hours before requesting to check out the item again.  

Information for Faculty 

We will process request for digitization of resources, but we are requiring faculty to provide a fair use evaluation of the resources they are requesting to be digitized. This action is to support documentation for Copyright law.  

Faculty will need to also fill out a Course reserve Lending Agreement form, when they are loaning personal copies of a resource to the Libraries to be used for Course Reserves. In this agreement faculty will agree to the libraries being able to loan the items temporarily, and the Libraries are not responsible for any loss or damage to the item while it is in out possession.  

We hope that through these changes we will be able to streamline our functions providing greater support to students and clear process for our faculty. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to coursereserves@uta.libanswers.com.