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Materials such as books, textbooks, course readers, and media that an instructor has selected for use by students enrolled in a specific course are placed “on reserve” at the UW-Madison Libraries.
The main location for physical items on reserve is College Library.
Libraries serving certain schools may have their own course content services. Please see their information pages.
Course reading lists allow students to search for assigned course content that can be accessed through the libraries. These lists contain both physical course materials on reserve and electronic resources like e-books that are discoverable through the library catalog. Reading lists do not contain links to articles from library databases.
The libraries do not provide scanning or hosting services for e-reserves. Online content licensed by the libraries, such as journal articles and e-books can be accessed on or off campus. When adding licensed content please provide students with the link in lieu of distributing copies.
The libraries already have access to millions of e-books. When available from the publisher, the libraries can purchase individual e-books with unlimited user licenses to enable simultaneous access to course content.
The UW-Libraries supports the use of media for courses through licensed databases, the digitization and streaming of short portions of media, and physical course reserves.
Please visit the Media for Courses page for more information.
The libraries can provide guidance and information about using copyrighted materials in your courses. Please visit our copyright information pages for more information. You can submit copyright and fair use questions via the course content form