Faculty - Library Reserves

  • Attend one of the Course Materials Through the Library workshops for faculty, on either August 20, or 29th, 2025.
  • The Course Reserves page provides guidance on how to use the Library Reserves section in Canvas to create a course materials list and place requests for materials, and what the turnaround time will be. This page also provides a link to schedule an online consultation for one-on-one assistance. 
  • Library staff will automatically locate or generate digital copies of requested materials and link them to your list, and make sure they meet accessibility requirements.
  • Requests for book scanning can take up to 4 weeks.
  • Plan Ahead. We give priority to requests submitted by these dates:
    • Fall term: August 1
    • J-term: November 15
    • Spring term: December 1
    • Summer term: May 15
  • Email reserves@harvard-as.libanswers.com with any questions.
  • If the Library Reserves section is not visible in your Canvas course, here are instructions on how to make it visible or contact instructionaltechnology@dce.harvard.edu to have the tool turned on. 
  • This brief 3-minute Harvard Library Introduction video for faculty includes a quick look at the Library Reserves tool in Canvas, along with a general library overview. 

Additional guidance:

  • We encourage you to include items that you know the library does not own; we'll figure it out. Some articles appear as web-only content, for example in The Atlantic or The New Yorker, that are not included in our library subscription; we can try to acquire these web-only articles, and we may be unsuccessful but please ask anyway! 
  • Whether an e-book can have unlimited users depends on the publisher. Minimum access is one student at a time in 3-hour blocks. Depending on available licenses, adding an entire book to your Library Reserves list may result in more restricted access than if you add a few chapters from the book.
  • Some films are not possible to stream through Library Reserves, but we will try. After adding films to your Library Reserves list, you can email reserves@harvard-as.libanswers.com to follow-up with any questions. We also have a Streaming Video @ Harvard guide, where you can discover our current access to streaming video collections. Many individual film titles are listed in HOLLIS too, but not all, making the Streaming guide a helpful resource. 
  • Harvard's Office of the General Counsel (OGC) contains helpful information regarding copyright and fair use. 
  • The Faculty Library Guide provides additional information about library resources and services. 

Students - Library Reserves

  • Access online course reserves through Canvas.