Electronic Reserves

The Guidelines:

The following examples are considered acceptable fair use for purposes of the Copyright Act:

1. Short items such as an article from a journal, a chapter from a book or conference proceedings, a poem from a collected work; or longer items that may include articles, chapters, poems, or other works that are of such length as to constitute a substantial portion of a book, journal, or other work of which they may be a part;

2. Electronic reserve systems should not include any material unless the faculty member, the library, or another unit of the institution possesses a lawfully obtained copy;

3. The total amount of material included in electronic reserve systems for a specific course as a matter of fair use should be a small portion of the total assigned reading for a particular course.

4. If a notice of copyright appears on the copy of a work that is included in an electronic reserve system, the following statement shall appear at some place where users will likely see it in connection with access to the particular work: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose liability for copyright infringement upon a library or archives or its employees for the unsupervised use of reproducing equipment located on its premises: Provided, that such equipment displays a notice that the making of a copy may be subject to the copyright law.”

5. Materials included in electronic reserve systems should include appropriate citations or attributions to their sources.

6. Electronic reserve systems should be structured to limit access to students registered in the course for which the items have been placed on reserve, and to faculty members and staff members responsible for the system.

7. Permission from the copyright holder is required if the item is to be reused in a subsequent academic term for the same course offered by the same instructor, or if the item is a standard assigned or optional reading for an individual course taught in multiple sections by many instructors.

8. Materials may be retained in electronic form while permission is being sought or until the next academic terms in which the material might be used, but in no event for more than three (3) calendar years, including the year in which the materials are last used.

9. Short-term access to materials included on electronic reserve systems in previous academic terms may be provided to students who have not completed the course.