Building a Better Course Reserve System

Planned Flexibility for Course Reserves

“…More than a decade ago, course reserves faced the revolution of electronic content delivery. Many libraries cobbled together solutions using systems at hand to provide protected access to online course material (Brinkman, Lavallee-Welch & Paul, 2004;Dick & Ferguson, 2006;Bombeld & Pfohl, 2004). The intricacies of these homemade systems and the unique needs of electronic reserves created an environment where the multiple functions of reserves became more and more separate in their processes and accessibility.…”

“…The intricacies of these homemade systems and the unique needs of electronic reserves created an environment where the multiple functions of reserves became more and more separate in their processes and accessibility. Fast forwarding to the present revolution in course reserves sees a growing need to centralize service points, data recording, and assessment measures (Dick & Ferguson, 2006;Peters & Sanney, 2012;Hansen, Cross & Edwards, 2013).…”

“…Similar to that of the University of Maryland and others, USF's electronic reserves system had evolved piecemeal over time, relying on outdated paper forms and cumbersome work processes. Existing communication methods produced few faculty responses to emails requesting updates on reserve materials (Dick & Ferguson, 2006). By moving all existing processes to Ares, the service points for physical reserves, electronic reserves, media reserves, and the new textbooks on reserve would all be combined.…”