In Winter 2021, the Bookstore's coursepack service was replaced with McGill Library's new Course Readings Service. The change to the coursepack process emerged in response to student concerns about the high cost of course material affecting access to higher education. This has allowed us to provide students with access to course material through the Library’s collection or by licensing works for use by your class at no additional cost to the student. Please review the instructions for an appropriate Library branch below and fill in the Instructor Requests: Course Readings form.
Course Readings and Reserves
Producing print coursepacks is not part of the new Course Readings Service.
Course readings can be made available for your students in several ways:
- Electronic resources that are part of the Library’s collection can be made available through the Course Reserves system.
- Alternatively, you can also link to Library materials directly on myCourses (using the “Create New > WebLink” feature).
- If we do not yet own the materials needed for your courses, contact your Liaison Librarian to investigate the possibility of purchasing them, or directly contact our Collection Services by using the Purchase Request Form.
- Electronic readings that we are not able to add to the Library’s collection will be licensed (if appropriate) for use in the requested course and provided to instructors as PDFs to post in MyCourses.
- When there are no electronic options, print materials can be made available on 1-day loan in the library branches and will be listed in the Course Reserves system.
Many for-profit textbook publishers do not sell to libraries, so we are not able to obtain e-book versions from those publishers. For more information, we have a webpage on Commercial Textbooks Challenges.
Select a branch
Education Curriculum Resource Centre
Course readings and reserves request form »
Deadlines
- Fall term: August 15
- Winter term: December 1
- Spring term: April 30
- Summer term: May 15
Questions?
For additional assistance, please contact the branch.
Humanities and Social Sciences Library
Course readings and reserves request form »
Deadlines
- Course reserves lists are processed in order of receipt.
- When possible, reserve lists should be submitted at least 3 weeks prior to the beginning of term for materials to be available for the first week of class.
- Materials not available in the Library collection will be ordered priority for reserve. At least 6 weeks notice is usually required.
- A maximum of 30 titles per course will be accepted.
- The Library is happy to work with faculty who wish to create direct links to online documents (e-books, e-journals or online articles) and place electronic copies of readings within myCourses. Please contact your liaison librarian for assistance.
Copyright and reserve photocopying
Faculty are responsible for informing themselves of and complying with all copyright requirements as described on the COPIBEC web site and the Canadian Copyright Act, before submitting photocopies to be placed on Reserve. Copies must be supplied by the professor. The Library does not assume photocopying costs.
Questions?
For additional assistance, please contact hsslreserves.library [at] mcgill.ca.
Islamic Studies Library
Course readings and course reserves request form »
Questions?
For additional assistance, please contact the branch »
Macdonald Campus Library
Course readings and course reserves request form »
Reserve lists must be submitted at least 3 weeks prior to the beginning of term for materials to be available for the first week of class.
Materials not available in the Library collection will be ordered priority for reserve. At least 6 weeks notice is required.
Questions?
For additional assistance, please contact the branch »
Marvin Duchow Music Library
Course readings and course reserves request form »
Making course materials available to students:
- Submit requests through the Instructor Requests: Course Readings form. Music Library staff will review requests to determine if we hold or can acquire electronic versions.
- Ebooks will be made available through a Course Reserves listing in the Sofia Discovery catalogue.
- For electronic resources such as online articles and recordings, instructors usually make these available through links on myCourses or in the course outline.
- NB:
- The easiest way to ensure off-campus access to electronic resources is to link to the item in the Sofia Discovery catalogue; e.g. https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/oclc/70513996 for Grove Music Online.
- If you provide a direct link to the resource, the proxy prefix must be included so that students are prompted to enter their McGill credentials; e.g. https://proxy.library.mcgill.ca/login?url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic (NOT https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic).
- For more guidance, see Creating links in MyCourses.
- NB:
- When there are no electronic options, available physical materials indicated on your request form will be made accessible at the Music Library Service Desk via short-term (3-hr or 1-day) reserve loans and will appear in a Course Reserves listing.
- Scanning and uploading print materials to myCourses:
- See Add readings to myCourses (includes instructions for requesting permission to upload amounts that exceed the COPIBEC agreement allowances: report the readings on Savia and the Library will try to license the additional portions for you to post on myCourses)
- Either use the Library's scan request service or create your own scans. More details: Services for teaching: Course readings & reserves - scroll down to the section entitled “Alternative: Creating a scan of your print course materials”
- If use of a printed course pack is necessary for your students’ in-class activities (score study and analysis, annotation of notated music, etc.), please music.library [at] mcgill.ca (subject: Winter%202023%20course%20materials) (consult with us) or coursepacks.ancillary [at] mcgill.ca (contact the Bookstore) to place your request.
Assistance with new acquisitions: Music Library staff will continue to fulfill purchase requests for course materials not available in McGill’s collection. We encourage you to music.library [at] mcgill.ca (contact us) as soon as possible so we can work to acquire the items.
Questions?
For additional assistance, please contact the branch »
Nahum Gelber Law Library
Course readings and course reserves request form »
Questions?
For additional assistance, please contact the branch »
Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering
Course readings and course reserves request form »
- When possible, reserve lists should be submitted at least 3 weeks prior to the beginning of term for materials to be available for the first week of class.
- Materials not available in the Library collection will be ordered priority for reserve. At least 6 weeks notice is usually required.
Questions?
For additional assistance, please contact schulichreserves.library [at] mcgill.ca.
Alternative: Creating a Scan of Your Print Course Materials Yourself
- General guidelines:
- Instructors may be able to scan portions of a book or an article we do not own online. For details, see the Guide on Adding Readings to MyCourses
- As required by our agreement with Copibec, scanned material must be reported on Savia
- Need help reporting your scans? Please contact copyright.library [at] mcgill.ca
- We can also try to obtain print versions to be scanned for you and send you the links. Contact your Liaison Librarian or use the Purchase Request Form.
- Scanning print materials using your mobile device (IOS and Android):
- The OneDrive for Business app will allow you to create a multi-page scan of a print document using the camera of your mobile device. The resulting document is automatically saved as a pdf.
- Download and install the One Drive app to your mobile device
- Sign-in using your McGill username and password
- For more information, please see Microsoft's instructions for using the app
- Need help? itsupport [at] mcgill.ca (contact ICS) for technical assistance
- The OneDrive for Business app will allow you to create a multi-page scan of a print document using the camera of your mobile device. The resulting document is automatically saved as a pdf.
