Faculty Instructions for Reserve Services

Below are instructions and explanations for placing materials on print course reserve. All electronic reserve requests are centrally processed at the main library. The guidelines for Electronic Reserve (ERS) are available at the main library reserve web site.

• Guidelines and instructions for Course Reserve list submissions.

• Course Reserve submission list online form

Please Click here for Frequently Asked Questions about course reserve at the Northwestern libraries.

Fair Use and Copyright Restrictions

All materials that Reserve Services processes for Regular or Electronic Reserve must either fall within the Fair Use guidelines or receive copyright permission from the copyright holder.

If your materials fall within the following "Fair Use" guidelines, as prescribed by the American Library Association, copyright permission is not necessary.

• Up to 10% of a single book
• One article from a single issue of a periodical title.

If your materials fall outside of these parameters, then copyright permission must be sought. Other instances where copyright permission is required include:

• Items that are to be kept on reserve quarter after quarter, whether or not the items themselves fall within "Fair Use."
• Multiple essays, stories, poems, etc. that are written by different authors but are included in the same book, e.g. anthologies, textbooks.
• Multiple chapters (more than 10%) from a single book even if it is for one semester

Please note that until an item receives copyright permission, Reserve Services cannot process it.

Copyright Information