Written by: Angela Whitfield
One of the most popular materials checked out at the Library Services Desk is our course reserve collection. Mystery often swirls around the phrase “course reserve,” because it is a library term that is not used anywhere outside of academic libraries, not to mention the different rules that determine how an item is placed on reserve.
So what exactly is a course reserve? A course reserve is an item that has been selected as required or recommended reading for a class and is being held behind a library services desk. These items can be checked out by students taking the class and often have shorter check out periods than items in the general collection. Shorter check out periods ensure other students in the class an opportunity to check the item out.
The most common items placed on course reserve are textbooks. Textbooks placed on course reserve are personal copies provided by the faculty member teaching the course and are not purchased by the library. Due to this condition, the library does not have textbooks on reserve for every single class. It may be worth mentioning to the instructor if there is ever a need for a textbook course reserve for your class.
Other items that may be placed on reserve are books from the library general collection and e-reserves. If an instructor selects a book for reading in a class and the library already owns a copy, then the instructor can request it for course reserve to ensure it is available for the class to read. These can be physical items placed behind the library services desk for reduced check out periods or they may be a link in the catalog that connects to an e-book or journal article.
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Written By: Janelle Foster
UNT Libraries offer abundant resources and services to further the educational careers of UNT students. But did you know that, as a student of UNT, you can also utilize the collections of hundreds of other libraries?
When you can’t access what you need through UNT Libraries, use Interlibrary Loan.
Interlibrary Loan is a service provided free of charge for enrolled students, faculty, and staff. It allows you to check out materials that are not owned or currently available through UNT from other participating libraries. This means that millions of print and electronic items are accessible to you!
A Brief History of Interlibrary Loan
The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) is a non-profit library cooperative that was founded in 1967. Its primary mission is to “make information more accessible and more useful” (OCLC, 2019). One of the instruments of this mission is the resource-sharing initiative WorldCat, an immense, searchable database comprised of library collections from around the world. Another is the OCLC Interlibrary Loan System, which revolutionized interlibrary loan when it was rolled out in 1979 (Nevins, 1998). While the exchange of materials between libraries was practiced before this date, it was done with far more effort and required extensive searching of other libraries (without a computer) and cumbersome paperwork (with a typewriter) (Nevins, 1998). With the introduction of the OCLC Interlibrary Loan System, the process became automated and has evolved currently into an integrated software that connects libraries on a global scale. Request submittal, item verification, locating potential lenders, and item retrieval all now function within a streamlined, electronic system that library patrons themselves can initiate with ease (Nevins, 1998)
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Written By: Raul Gonzalez
There is a common theme among academic libraries, which is to adapt, develop, and maintain. Whether it is a new policy or technology, libraries aim to mold new tools into services for their patrons. Original items are becoming digitized, libraries are reaching farther than their walls, and cutting-edge technologies compose the growing makerspaces in many libraries. But let’s dial back to a web tool most of us know, which are blogs.
Although blogs are not new within UNT Libraries, Scholar Speak is a fresh initiative as a student-to-student scholarly blog.
We hope to use Scholar Speak as a medium to bridge the gap between students, patrons, and their library. This means we will discuss topics and events related to UNT Libraries, as well as inform readers of scholarly tools and insights as they pursue their academic career. To further close this gap, we hope to create a collaborative space, where we hear back from our readers and bring conversation to these topics.
But who are “we”? Scholar Speak is primarily run by the Graduate Services Assistants (GSAs) at UNT Willis Library. We are an extension of Access Services but also an extension of students, like yourself. As of Spring 2019, we are Raul, Janelle, Angela, Anima, Hui-Yu, and Oluwaseyitan. In the near future, we hope to extend our cast of authors by including various voices from UNT Libraries staff and librarians.
As Scholar Speak gains traction, we hope to bring you content that is consistent, interesting, informational, and above all, helpful. One of our missions with Scholar Speak is to highlight resources within UNT Libraries and provide insight on how to access and utilize these items. We look forward to the conversations and ideas our discussions may prompt, and we hope you will be a part of it too.
Feel free to leave suggestions or comments in the comments form or email us at Askus@unt.edu.
