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Teach With the Libraries
We encourage faculty to draw upon the Libraries' collections, technology, professional staff and facilities to enrich their teaching and promote student learning. We provide expertise, tailor our instruction to faculty needs and aim to make students comfortable navigating the library's rich resources, including archival and special collections. Our instruction includes customized activities that facilitate classroom discussion, student-led inquiry and critical thinking.
Place Materials on Course Reserve
Course Reserve allows instructors to set aside books, DVDs and articles for class use in the library, or to make articles or book excerpts available through Canvas.
Books and multimedia materials not owned by Northwestern Libraries can be ordered for purchase by Reserve staff.
See step-by-step instructions to place items on reserve on Course Reserve for Instructors.
Online Instruction
Course Guides
Subject librarians can create research guides highlighting key resources for your course.
Canvas Modules
The Northwestern Libraries developed three Canvas modules to strengthen students’ digital and information literacy skills. Adding one or more of these modules to your Canvas course provides students with an opportunity to improve their knowledge of the research process and build their understanding of the library’s print and online holdings. Faculty can review the modules in Canvas Commons. You can import one or more of the modules to your Canvas course, or contact your subject librarian for more customized instruction.
Sage Campus
Sage Campus is a suite of online courses focused on research and data literacy skills. Sage Campus provides an accessible and flexible option to grow critical academic and research skills with 40 self-paced online mini-courses.
Initial access requires registration with a Northwestern email address. Registered users can access from anywhere.
Faculty Testimonials
This assignment comes the first week of fall quarter freshman year--I believe actively getting the students to the library and to see what they can get from the library as early as possible in their academic careers is vital to future success.”
— Patti Wolter, Medill
Bringing my classes to special collections...would be impossible without the amazingly knowledgeable and generous staff. The librarians make the visit possible and also help shepherd students through individual follow up visits. ”
— Susie Phillips, Department of English
I want students to become familiar with the library and to use its resources, including consulting (human) librarians. Additionally, I think it is important that first-year students begin to understand the concept of "expertise," and seeing that a librarian has research expertise that their professors and the students themselves do not is an important lesson. They did better research for the target research paper AND for later papers for our class.”
— Lisa del Torto, Design Thinking & Communication, Writing Program