Library Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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1. What is Electronic Course Reserves?

2. What is the difference between Course Reserves and Electronic Course Reserves?

3. How do students access materials via Electronic Course Reserves?

4. What types of files and materials can I place on Electronic Course Reserves?

5. Can I place a book on Electronic Course Reserves?

6. How long does it take before items I give to the library for Electronic Course Reserves become available to students?

7. Why would I post materials for my course via Electronic Course Reserves rather than just using Blackboard?

8. How do I place materials on Electronic Course Reserves?

9. Are there any limitations to files placed on Electronic Course Reserves, such as dpi settings or file sizes?

10. Will you also keep hard copies on hand at the Circulation Desk?

11. Can I email materials to be placed on Electronic Course Reserves?

12. Whom do I contact with questions?

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1. What is Electronic Course Reserves?
   Electronic Course Reserves is a service available at Baddour Library that allows faculty to post documents, notes, audio clips, URLs, and still images to a designated space in the library catalog. Students may log in with their name and student ID number anytime, from anywhere, to view these items.
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2. What is the difference between Course Reserves and Electronic Course Reserves?
   Course Reserve is a service whereby physical items can be loaned to students under restricted loan rules in order to maximize availability. Items go out for two hours, for in-library use only. Electronic Course Reserves also loans items to students in a class, but provides more flexibility. With Electronic Course Reserves, multiple students can download the same file at once, and are not limited by the physical constraints of library-only use. Both regular and electronic course reserves are retrieved from the same access point, the library catalog, when a students looks up his professor’s name or his course number to find out what materials are available through the library for that class.
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3. How do students access materials via Electronic Course Reserves?
   To access Electronic Course Reserves, go to the library catalog at http://frontier.dwc.edu/screens/opacmenu.html, click on either “Course Reserves by Course Name,” or “Course Reserves by Professor,” and enter the appropriate information. A listing of items on reserve for a given professor or course will come up. This will include both books and videos that are on physical reserve at the Circulation Desk, as well as scanned articles that are available in electronic format. The latter will carry the special notation, “Electronic Copy Available;” see the screen shot below. When you click on the title of an electronic course reserve, you will be prompted to enter your last name and student ID number, and then you will be allowed to view the item.
   

    

4. What types of files and materials can I place on Electronic Course Reserves?

   • images — BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF files

   • text (TXT) files

   • Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files

   • Microsoft Word document (DOC) files

   • MPEG Layer III compressed audio (MP3) file

   • Journal articles or other printed pages in Portable Document Format (PDF)

   • PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) files

   • Waveform Sound Format (WAV) files

   • a URL (such as a web site or a persistent link to an article in a database)
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5. Can I place a book on Electronic Course Reserves?
   That depends. If the item is an ebook from one of our electronic collections (such as Safari Tech Books Online, Xrefer Reference Collection, or the ACLS History E-Book Project), then we can link to it from your course reserve page. And if a book is freely available online, we can certainly point to it. However, we cannot take a physical book and scan it in for Electronic Course Reserves, as this would be a violation of Copyright Law.
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6. How long does it take before items I give to the library for Electronic Course Reserves become available to students?
   72 hours if you are asking the library to scan documents into .pdf format for you; otherwise, 48 hours.
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7. Why would I post materials for my course via Electronic Course Reserves rather than just using Blackboard?
   If you have physical items such as books on reserve at the library, you might also want to post electronic copies of documents in the same access point, the library catalog, as a clearinghouse of supplemental course information. Additionally, for some classes that meet entirely face-to-face, you might not want to set up an entire course in Blackboard just to house supplemental readings for the course. But if your class is heavily or entirely online, it might make more sense to use Blackboard instead of Electronic Course Reserves. For entirely online courses, electronic reserve is most useful for items like handwritten test answers and journal articles that are not available digitally in an electronic database; see the graphic below.
   
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8. How do I place materials on Electronic Course Reserves?
   Bring them to the library on paper, cd, or disk. Files that are under 4MB (the college’s email attachment limit) may be emailed to heron@dwc.edu after filling out the Course Reserve Request Form at http://www.dwc.edu/library/eres.shtml.
   
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9. Are there any limitations to files placed on Electronic Course Reserves, such as dpi settings or file sizes?
   There are no set limitations; however, common sense should prevail. As a general rule, smaller, more compressed files will be easier for students to download. When providing photocopies to be scanned in, the original must be legible in order for the electronic copy to be legible. It is the responsibility of the faculty member to provide clean, readable copies.
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10. Will you also keep hard copies on hand at the Circulation Desk?
    We will, if you like.
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11. Can I email materials to be placed on Electronic Course Reserves?
    Yes, email them to heron@dwc.edu. The college has a 4MB attachment limit, so larger files will have to be delivered to the library the old-fashioned way. You will also need to fill out the Course Reserve Request Form at http://www.dwc.edu/library/eres.shtml before these can be processed.
    
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12. Whom do I contact with questions?

    Linda Heron, Technical Systems Librarian, ext. 6543 or heron@dwc.edu.
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