Leah’s work centres on processing requests to make course materials available to students through the Library’s Course Reserves system along with the rest of the Course Reserves team. She describes the process of setting up reserves as a detailed one, which varies a lot between requests. Some requests can be processed quickly, while others may take several days or weeks to complete depending on their complexity and if copyright permission is required. The processing of an item for reserves can involve consultation with other library staff, the publisher and back and forth with the instructor. August to September and late November through to early January are the busiest times of the year for Leah, but the pandemic has made things steadier year-round.
Leah notes that the complexities of reserves processing are made better by working with a great team that have a shared interest in making access as easy as they can for students and instructors. The busy parts of each term are a huge project unto themselves and working together to get that done is rewarding.
One of the challenges Leah and other Reserves staff have faced is the lack of library licenses for eBooks, especially during the pandemic. For many titles publishers simply won’t sell access at all, or the access comes with an exorbitant price. It’s frustrating to not be able to provide more options for students and instructors.
Leah works with a variety of people across campus. On a daily basis she’s working with the Course Reserves team and instructors. She’s often checking in with the Liaison Librarians and the Copyright & Licensing Librarian. Leah’s role has changed quite a bit over the years which means she’s working with more people than ever before. Over the pandemic she’s been working on a project with the W Store to help assess library licensed eBook availability for adopted textbooks. She’s part of the Copyright Advisory Committee Working Group (CACWG) where she’s responsible for bringing back information from CACWG to Circulation Services. She’s also a resource person for Ares, the Course Reserves software, and works closely with Chris and Brandon in Digital Initiatives when changes are needed to that system.
Leah is currently working on:
This term Leah is continuing a project with the W Store to evaluate the availability of eBooks for adopted textbooks. This project seeks to minimize cost for students and improve ease of access. This project came out of the pandemic when the Library and the W Store were looking for ways to ensure that students had access to course materials when courses moved fully online.
How you can help Leah out
In order for things to go smoothly it’s best if people plan ahead, start as early as possible, and provide detailed information about what they want on reserve. Leah recognizes that there are cases where planning ahead or starting early isn’t possible (especially in the case of sessional instructors), so the best rule of thumb is to have patience as the process gets completed.
Something fun about Leah
Leah’s been in a hot-air balloon, and it crash landed! Everyone was safe, except for the alfalfa field that they landed on and the bottle of champagne that went to the disgruntled farmer. Leah loves reading (particularly authors Louise Penny and Kathy Reichs), walking trails, and watching movies, and is a big sports fan. She has two cats Ashton and Pringles (who is not named after the chips).
