UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Fall 2016 will see improving access to University Libraries course resources, as content on reserve and guides for research are integrated into the Canvas learning management system. In addition, the Libraries has moved online course reserves into a more user-friendly system, E-Reserves.
While reserve requests from faculty will be submitted using the same forms, content integration with Canvas will enable Libraries staff to embed all online reserves directly into the Canvas course. Each course’s reserves and guides can be accessed directly from the Library Resources section in the left navigation area.
All faculty, whether using ANGEL or Canvas, also will be emailed direct links to reserves lists for their convenience and for them to embed in courses using ANGEL. Reserves links in ANGEL under the Resources tab, “Penn State Library Tools,” will no longer function. Instructions for faculty to remove these tools and replace them with a direct E-Reserves link will be available through ANGEL.
Library guides relevant to each course and related subjects also will be automatically included under the Library Resources section in Canvas, providing students with a quick and easy list of tools to guide them to reliable resources for their assignments. These guides will be automatically generated according to each course, but faculty members can easily request alternate guides for the specific needs of each course by contacting their subject librarian.
The University Libraries offers more than 800 course and subject guides of curated sources of information to support learning and research. Guides provided by the Libraries online have been viewed more than 1 million times in 2016 alone.
Each semester, the University Libraries typically supports nearly 600 courses with about 10,000 online items on reserve, and additional courses with physical materials on reserve, at all library locations. For more information about course reserves or to look up reserve materials by course number, visit https://libraries.psu.edu/services/course-reserves.