Fall Faculty Digest – New Resources and Updates

The library is here to help you access the resources you need for your teaching and research! Check out new resources we’ve acquired, learn how we use usage patterns to determine which eBooks to keep long-term, and find out how the library can help you get copyright clearance for your course material.

New Resources Available 

The library is excited to share several new resources that we've added to the collection to support teaching and research across the disciplines.  

Check out our full list of new collections on the Collections Update page.

Some highlights include:

• MLA Handbook Plus: For the first time in its history, the MLA Handbook Plus is accessible online! MLA is the most common citation and referencing handbook in the humanities disciplines. The MLA Handbook Plus provides access the most up-to-date version of the MLA Handbook (9th), ensuring that students and instructors have access to the best tools to effectively learn and use the MLA style.
• National Theatre Company Collections 1 and 2: Drawing on 10 years of National Theatre (UK) Live broadcasts, alongside high-quality archive recordings never previously seen outside of the NT’s Archive, the National Theatre Collections 1 and 2 are now complete and offer a total of 50 filmed performances. This collection offers high-definition streaming video of world-class productions and unique archival material offering crucial insight into theatre and performance studies.
• RIPM Jazz Periodicals: RIPM Jazz Periodicals is a collection of over 100 full-text and full-image digitized jazz journals. An essential, unique collection of historical American jazz periodicals of great importance to any lover of jazz and its history, and a primary source reference and research tool for all libraries.
• SPIE Digital Library: The SPIE Digital Library contains 16 journals and 2 conference proceedings series from the International Society for Optics and Photonics, including fundamental and applied research in a wide range of fields such as astronomical instrumentation, biomedical optics, imaging technologies, micro/nanolithography, MEMS/MOEMS, remote sensing, and renewable energy.

Evidence-Based Acquisitions (EBA)

The library is exploring new ways of maximizing your access to eBook content using the Evidence-Based Acquisitions (EBA) model. EBA titles allow you to access a large volume of newly published eBook content throughout the academic year. At the end of the year, the library primarily uses usage patterns to determine which of these eBooks to retain for the long-term.

This means that you’ll have broad access to newly published eBooks from several scholarly presses, including:

• Elsevier
• Palgrave-Springer
• Taylor & Francis (which includes Routledge, Burleigh Dodds, and CRC Press, among others)
• Bloomsbury (which includes the British Film Institute, British Academic Press, Zeb Books, and many others)

If there is a specific title you would like to make sure we retain access to, please let us know and we can purchase a perpetual access license. Please send us an e-mail at library@uoguelph.ca if you have specific title requests or have any questions about this new initiative.  

Copyright Clearance Service for Course Reserve Materials

Ensuring that course materials are compliant with copyright requirements is an important component of the library’s Course Reserve services.  When course materials are submitted to the Ares Course Reserve system, they are checked to determine their copyright status. Many articles, books and book chapters are already available online through the library’s extensive collections of electronic resources, but when content needs to be scanned from print materials, copyright permission may need to be acquired. In such cases, the library negotiates permission to scan and post the content in Ares and CourseLink, and pays any required royalties or license fees.   

In the past year alone, the library obtained 300 short-term licenses and paid more than $60,000 in copyright fees in order to enable online access to course readings for more than 100 different courses.  Many permissions can be cleared within two or three business days, and in cases where obtaining permission is not possible, the library will purchase a copy of the original work, when available, to ensure students are provided with access to the content they need. 

Questions?

If you have questions about course materials, copyright, or the Ares Course Reserve system, please send us an e-mail at library@uoguelph.ca.