Information for Staff about Readings

Introduction

Essential course readings can be made available to students either online via eReadings or in the Library's Readings collection. The Readings are available from your FLO topic under the Readings and Library Resources option, or via the Library's web site from the Library catalogue, under the Readings tab.

Readings Collection and eReadings

Readings collection

  • these items are available for 2 hour loan in your local branch library
  • items such as textbooks or DVDs from the Library's collection, private copies of books and topic handbooks/readers will be added to the Readings collection

eReadings

eReadings are items available online either via linking to an electronic resource or to a scan of the item

The Library will place the following types of material in eReadings:

  • printed materials such as chapters from books or journal articles which have been scanned into a digital format, or obtained in digital format via Document Delivery
  • links to content already available digitally as part of the Library’s collection, such as articles from electronic journals.

The Library will NOT place the following material on eReadings:

  • lecture notes
  • PowerPoint presentations (in .ppt or .pdf format)
  • learning objects or online tutorials
  • articles in topic readers
  • material freely available on web such as government or NGO publications

Copyright and licensing

All requests for eReadings must comply with the Copyright Act and the University's CAL agreement. Readings staff will advise you if there are copyright problems for any items you submit.

Full-text articles from databases subscribed to by the University are generally covered by contract provisions rather than copyright legislation. You must not download or scan articles from these databases for eReadings. Instead Library staff will create links to these articles.

Copyright guidelines for Readings

Submitting Readings materials

Academic staff can submit a list of essential readings to their Liaison Librarian or the Readings staff in each branch library. We recommend submitting requests prior to the start of each semester. We aim to process your requests as soon as possible and all material will be processed in order of receipt. Requests not submitted until the first few weeks of semester, when it is very busy, may take some time to process. During this time, Readings lists will be processed more efficiently if they have a week-by-week layout, with citation details as complete as possible.

Timelines

Requests for Readings can be made at any time of the year, the beginning of each semester is a very busy time for Readings so you will need to allow sufficient time for Readings staff to process your requests. You will also be contacted at the end of each year to confirm whether you wish to withdraw or retain Readings material for your courses.

FAQs

How much can be copied or scanned?

For Books - 10% of the number of pages in that edition or one chapter of that edition.

For Journal articles - the whole or part of an article contained in any issue of a periodical publication;
or the whole or part of two or more articles contained in any issue of a periodical publication if those articles are on a closely related topic.

Readings staff will advise you if your Readings do not meet Copyright requirements.

Why Readings and not on my FLO pages?

Copyright limits are relevant for the whole University and Copyright on this kind of material is best managed in a single place as it protects the University and teaching staff from breaches of Copyright. If material has been published then it should be located in eReadings, not directly from your FLO pages.

Do I have to add my Library Readings to my topic in FLO?

No, any Readings will automatically be available from your FLO topic under Library -> Readings and Library Resources. If you want to link to an individual eReading instructions are available here.

How do I know when my requests have been made available?

Check your FLO topic, any that have been processed will appear in the Readings and Library Resources section.

How long do my documents stay online?

Your Readings and eReadings will stay on the library system until the end of each year. You will then be asked if your Readings are needed for the following year's teaching and these may be kept available. Any Readings not needed will be removed.

Who can access eReadings?

Staff and students of the University. Off-campus you are prompted to enter your FAN and password for access.

Can I scan or copy documents and give them to the library?

Not in the first instance. Due to potential copyright or licensing restrictions, it is quicker and easier for Library staff to source the Readings for you. Therefore we prefer a list of citations rather than the actual documents.

If the Library is having difficulty obtaining a copy your requested resource, we will contact you. If we ask you to send us a copy of a document, please include a complete and accurate citation. Please note that scans or copies of electronic originals (from databases and websites) are not permitted because they are likely to be a licence breach. Documents must be of good quality, A4 size, no larger than 5MB if already scanned, and have no dark borders.