Reserve Information for Faculty

Course Reserve allows instructors to set aside books and articles for class use in the library, or to make articles, streaming media or book excerpts available through Canvas.

Reserve items can be physical or electronic. Physical reserve materials are held at and checked out from the University Library Circulation Desk or Mudd Library Circulation Desk. Electronic reserve items are accessed through your course site in Canvas.

Reservable items

Books from circulating collections from Northwestern Libraries can be placed on physical Course Reserve. Books and multimedia materials not owned by Northwestern Libraries can be ordered for purchase by Reserve staff.

Book excerpts, newspaper articles, and streaming video and audio can be placed on electronic Reserve. E-journal and database articles that are already available within our collection should be linked directly from NUSearch using the Permalink option and not submitted via course reserves.

See guidelines for providing access to copyright-protected materials.

Non-reservable items

Items obtained through Interlibrary loan, non-circulating items from the McCormick Library, coursepacks and personal copies cannot be placed on physical reserve.

Certain publishers and databases limit access over electronic Reserve. We cannot place the following on electronic Reserve:

Harvard Business Review
Specialized subscription-based databases (Forrester)
Resources requiring a site-specific login (not NetID-based)
Items accessible for free over the internet
Resources that are not licensed via the library for the entire University community

Request limits

Scanned excerpts are limited to a chapter or two of any single book, but no more than 15% of an entire book.

For instructors who would like to use an item that does not meet the above guidelines, library staff will evaluate the request's feasibility and reply to the request.

See more on copyright and licensing limitations on Rights, Permissions and Reproductions.

Questions?

Help is also available via email at e-reserve@northwestern.edu or by calling 847-491-7681. For streaming media questions, call 847-467-1985.

Instructions for placing items on Reserve

Request physical materials to be placed on Course Reserve

Request materials for your course through your Canvas course site:

Navigate to the course site in the Canvas.
Click on Course Reserves in the left hand navigation, as shown below. This link is available in all courses automatically.
The first time the Course Reserves page is opened, please choose the quarter in which the course will be active and click "Create Course."
You will see the Course Reserves tool where you can request and view materials for your course.
Submit your list of materials you'd like on Course Reserve via Canvas. Include a needed-by date for when you need the material to be available on the shelf and whether you'd like the item to be available at University or Mudd Library.
Course reserve items can be granted a loan period of 2-hours, 4-hours or 1-day. Choose the length of loan period in the request.

Our standard turnaround time for materials that the library already owns and is available in the library is 5 days. Please note that requests may take longer to complete during periods of high volume and is predicated on the availability of the item. Do submit requests as early as possible.

If the library does not already have your item in our collection, Reserve staff will purchase a copy.

Request electronic materials to be placed on Course Reserve (available via Canvas)

Electronic Course Reserve materials include PDFs of book chapters and articles, links to articles, streaming audio and streaming video. See a video tutorial for requesting materials.

To request materials for your course through your Canvas course site:

Navigate to the course site in the Canvas.
Click on Course Reserves in the left hand navigation, as shown below. This link is available in all courses automatically.
The first time the Course Reserves page is opened, please choose the quarter in which the course will be active and click "Create Course."
You will see the Course Reserves tool where you can request and view materials for your course.
Click on "Add Reserve Items" link in the top menu of the Course Reserves section of your Canvas site.
Select the reserve item type from the menu. Your choices are: Book or DVD, Book Chapter, Article, Streaming Audio and Streaming Video. (If you have items from a previous course you would like to import, then click on them in the Previous Classes box. See instructions for copying items from your other courses.)
Fill out the form for the Reserve Item choice you have selected. This example shows the Streaming Video form. Pay special attention to the date format, which requires MM-DD-YY. Date needed should be a few days before the item is required for the course.
Click the submit item button once the form is filled out with all of the relevant information.

Link to articles from e-journals and databases

If the libraries already have access to an article you’d like your class to read, you can link to it in Canvas using a database or NUsearch permalink. Use NUsearch to search the article title. If it’s available, find the permalink to copy and add it as a module within your Canvas course.

To find the permalink for materials for your course:

Locate the listing for the item in NUsearch.
Click on Permalink in the item listing.
Copy the Permalink URL and paste it into your Canvas modules.

Copy Course Reserve requests from previous quarters

Navigate to the course site in the Canvas.
Click on Course Reserves in the left hand navigation, as shown below. This link is available in all courses automatically.
The first time the Course Reserves page is opened, please choose the quarter in which the course will be active and click "Create Course."
You will see the Course Reserves tool where you can request and view materials for your course.
Click on "Add Reserve Items" in the top menu of the Course Reserves section of your Canvas site.
Click on the "Import Items" link to the left of the course from which you wish to copy items.
Select only those items that you need to copy. There are options to "Uncheck All" or "Check All" at the top of the list.
Click "Import Items" at the bottom of the page. Turnaround time is often quick, but streaming videos may have a longer turnaround time (up to 7 days).