The cost of textbooks can cause a financial burden on students. To address this, the library works to keep the reserve collection as stocked and updated as possible. We welcome additions to the reserve section as long as the material being added will be used at least once every 3 quarters. There are two main ways to add books to the reserves section:
Personal items:
Instructors are welcome to place their own materials for their class on reserve for their students to use. We ask that you fill out the Fair Use Compliance form, which can be found in the column to the right or obtained in person at the library. Please keep in mind that to process these materials for checkout, they would require us to tape barcodes and labels onto your books.
Please contact us if you have any items that aren't traditionally distributed by the library, but you need to have in the hands of your students to maximize their learning opportunities. We encourage faculty to consider options other than print textbooks/materials. The library is committed to helping you identify potential options. Please see other information in this guide about our licensed electronic books, open educational resources, and public domain books.
Lottery funds:
We encourage the use of lottery funds for the purchase of “class sets” of textbooks. While the circulation desk has some funds allocated to on demand requests of students, it is a very limited amount.
The approval of the usage of lottery funds is solely at the discretion of your dean. If lottery funds are approved to purchase reserve books, circulation staff will then connect with the bookstore and instructor to update them on when the books are processed and ready to be checked out.
Reference Desk
(650) 949-7608
Circulation & Reserve
(650) 949-7611
Staff and faculty may check out stacks books for 6 weeks. They are also allowed to check out reserve materials. However, in the event that materials are running low, we will prioritize student needs. They can be renewed in the library at the Circulation Desk or use your library account online. Books that are not returned 7 days after the due date will be considered “lost.” Patrons will no longer be able to renew their materials remotely for lost items.
Each quarter, instructors need to sign the Fair Use Compliance Form (specific for Academic Libraries) for material on Reserve for that Quarter. We ask that Instructors visit the Reserve Desk to remove material no longer needed on Reserve, or put material on Reserve and sign the Fair Use form.
A search of "CVC" in the Canvas Commons will show you the CVC-OEIs OpenStax resources. Additionally, a search for "ASCCC" will show you resources that the ASCCC OERI Initiative is adding to the Commons. You can import a Commons resource directly into a Canvas course shell - where its contents will be added to whatever is already in the course. The only elements that the new content will override will be the image in the Canvas dashboard and the licensing indicated on the Frontpage.
Books and collections of books written specifically as textbooks. An open textbook is an integrated course-associated learning tool that is in the public domain or has been open-licensed by the copyright holder to permit re-use without the necessity of asking permission of the copyright holder. Some material is modifiable by the user for order and topic coverage. Some business models allow free or low cost online textbooks with a charge for printed or extended materials.
