18 June 2020
Dear faculty,
As you plan for fall classes, we would like to follow up on the recent significant advice from the Teaching & Learning Committee and urge you to get in touch with us about any library resources you may need for your fall teaching, especially expanded access to ebooks, streaming video, and other digital resources to support remote or hybrid learning. The sooner we can connect with you about your needs, the more effectively we can determine the most cost-effective ways to ensure that we have the resources to support your teaching and your students’ learning.
As you may know, we are able to license or purchase a wide range of resources in digital format, but these are usually more expensive than physical resources such as DVDs and paper books, and the complications of licensing terms can take some time to work out. For example, ebooks may be available with different licenses depending on the number of readers allowed at one time, and some course textbooks may be difficult to license.
If you typically send the library a list of books and DVDs to place on course reserve, please send those to us as soon as possible for your fall courses so that we can look into digital delivery of these items. You may also have additional needs that come up as you think about how your courses might be delivered remotely or through a hybrid model in the fall. Even if you think your syllabus or courses might change later, please feel free to go ahead and send your lists–this will give us time to start working on locating sources and budgeting for acquisition.
Please send your lists, in any form, to Terese Heidenwolf. For books, it would be helpful for us to know which titles are essential and likely to be used by all members of the class and which are supplementary and likely to be used by only a few students. For films, it would be helpful for us to know if having the film available for just one week of the semester will be sufficient or if students will need access throughout the semester.
Thanks for your help.
Anne Houston
Dean of Libraries