Instructors, please submit course material information as early as possible and no later than September 6 to ensure your requests are available before the start of the term and to allow students enough time to purchase required textbooks.

• Library staff will acquire as many ebooks as possible for classes.

  • Note: many common textbooks are not available for electronic purchase by the Library due to publisher licensing restrictions. 

• A master list of all textbooks for the current term will be updated on the Registrar and Library websites for students to consult as soon as submissions are processed.

• Our textbook supplier cannot guarantee the availability of any required textbooks added after the start of term. Students are free to purchase their books from any bookseller.

The Library is providing digital course reserves and all physical reserves will be housed at Sherman Fairchild Library unless requested elsewhere. Materials will circulate for three hours unless requested for longer periods. 

Since physical books on course reserve will be unavailable to students studying from home, the Library will attempt to acquire a digital copy whenever possible. When none is available for purchase, the Library can digitize up to 30% of any physical book and make the scans viewable in Canvas Course Reserves in 10% portions. If more than 30% of the book is required, instructors will need to contact the Office of General Council for permission.

Additionally, during the COVID-19 crisis, the Library has an expedited process for acquiring and providing access to audiovisual materials for online classroom and class-related use.

• If a requested item is available from a commercial streaming service, the Library will license access for campus use.
• If a requested item is only available in physical form (e.g. DVD, Blu-ray), the Library will acquire the item and make it available online, for classroom and class-related use only.
• Click here for additional information. 

DocuServe requests should only be used for individual research requests. Any material that your students will need to access for your courses should be requested via the "Course Reserves" tab in Canvas. Scanned reserve requests will be made available in Canvas at the start of term. Please note that scanning requests are subject to applicable copyright mentioned above.

If you have any questions or would like one-on-one assistance on how to publish and/or submit course reserves, please contact us at library@caltech.edu, and we will be happy to help you.