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University of Alberta Library Home > Course Materials & Reading Lists

Course Materials & Reading Lists

Search/Create Reading Lists

Instructors

FAQs

Use the steps below to get started with the Reading List Service. For additional information and advanced features visit our Reading List Library Guide or contact the course materials team.

Want to quickly add a textbook to Course Materials (formerly reserves)?

  • Create a simple reading list, use your course title (i.e. ANTHR 208) as the list name and select the term - this links your textbook with your course.
  • Use the Add Resource button to locate the title of your textbook.
  • Click the Review & Publish button.
  • Your textbook will be added to Course Materials as soon as it is available.

Rollover an existing list to a new term by completing this rollover request form.

Students

FAQs

Course materials and reading lists are available through the Reading List Service or through your courses in eClass. You can also create your own reading lists using the steps below.

Course Materials (formerly reserves) loan periods & fines

Creating a Reading List

Please use Google Chrome to create your reading lists.

Step 1

Install the Extension

Go to the Talis Aspire Reading Lists Bookmarking extension in the Chrome Web Store and click "Add to Chrome."

Detailed instructions

Step 2

Create your List

Create a reading list in the Reading List Service. Make sure you use the correct course code - example ANTHR 208 LEC-A1: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology.

Detailed instructions

Step 3

Organize your List

You can organize your reading list by topic, weeks, or any other divisions.

Detailed instructions Video tutorial

Step 4

Gather Resources

Find resources either in the library or online and click on the Talis extension icon to add resources to your Bookmarks.

Detailed instructions Video tutorial

Step 5

Publish your List

Publishing your list will make it available. You can also request library staff to review your list for availability and copyright. Library review takes 5 to 10 days.

Detailed instructions

Step 6

Add your List to eClass

Adding your list to eclass allows convenient access to reading list items for students and easy updating for instructors.

Detailed instructions

The Library's Textbook Initiative

To reduce the cost burden for students, the Library lends out copies of many textbooks stocked by the Bookstore. This effort is known as our Textbook Initiative. The Bookstore supplies us with lists of assigned textbooks before the start of each term. Using these lists, we work to purchase as many textbooks as we can. The following parameters guide how many copies of each textbook we will purchase.

  • We acquire only textbooks that are both priced over $50 and required (ie., not just recommended).
  • If we can purchase an ebook version of a textbook, we do so.
  • If no ebook is available, we buy print copies. For courses with up to 125 students, we buy one (1) copy. For courses with more than 125 students, we will buy up to five (5) copies in total.
  • Print textbooks are located in the corresponding library's Course Materials collection. For example, social sciences and humanities textbooks are kept in the Rutherford Course Materials room; science, engineering, and business textbooks are kept in the Cameron Course Materials room. Textbooks for Augustana and Campus Saint-Jean courses are kept in the Course Materials collections in those libraries.
  • Print textbooks can generally be borrowed for two hours at a time.

Other Resources for Instructors

Library staff can help you identify library materials, or alternative sources of course material that is both online, and no-cost or low-cost to students.

Alternatives to print textbooks include:

  • Open Educational Resources: we can search for open online textbooks, and provide you with a list of high quality options that are free to use and share.
  • Ebooks and other online resources that are already in our collection: including ebooks, reference sources and articles in online databases. Most of these have no limits on the number of users that can access them.
  • Purchase materials on demand: if we do not currently own an ebook version, we can investigate purchasing titles for our collection.

Consult a Librarian

Librarians can advise about assigning online library resources, such as ebooks, articles, and streaming film and music.
Find the librarian for your subject area here.