Guides: Library: Services for Faculty

Library Cards for Faculty

If you have a Redeemer OneCard (your Redeemer ID card), this will be used as your library card. Please present it at the circulation desk and staff will register you in the library database. For more information about your Redeemer OneCard, please see this link on the app.

Faculty Loan Periods

Books & CDs can be borrowed for 4 months.
DVDs can be borrowed for three weeks.
Items can be renewed (twice).
After two renewals, items must be returned to the library.
Items which cannot be taken out of the library include: periodicals, reference books and archival materials.

Loan Limits, Fines/Replacement Costs

Faculty will be allowed to sign out a maximum of 50 books for a 4 month period (one term). Faculty who have overdue loans will be charged the regular fines that all other library patrons are charged. If overdue books are not returned, faculty will be issued an invoice for the replacement of the book.

Overdue books, CDs and videos: 50 cents per item, per day, with a maximum of $10 per item.
Overdue reserve loans (including Study Room keys) is 5 cents per minute for 2 or 3 hour reserves and $1 per day for longer reserve loan periods.
Overdue recalls: $1 per day.
Replacement charges: current cost of item (including tax, shipping cost etc.) plus $10 processing fee. If an item has been overdue for more than one month, it will be considered a lost item and an invoice email will be sent out.
An unpaid balance of $20 or more will result in the loss of borrowing privileges.

Recalls

If a student requests a book that has been signed out to a faculty member, the book will be ‘recalled’. Faculty will be asked to return the book to the library within 48 hours (or as soon as possible). The faculty member may request that the book be returned to him/her after the student has finished with it (usually after 3 weeks).

Reference Services

The library has an online catalogue, access to databases with thousands of full-text journals, and other online reference materials. A librarian will gladly assist you with research questions and problems, either at the Research Assistance desk or by phone/email.

Off-campus access to the Library Databases at Redeemer

If you want to access the library databases from off-campus, you will be prompted for your Redeemer network password. Contact a librarian for help with searching the databases or accessing them from off-campus.

McMaster Library Access

New Sept, 2021: McMaster is offering the community free access to their print collection, with up to 40 check outs annually, 28 day circulation period with 2 renewals per item. Redeemer faculty/staff and students are classified as "Users from other Universities (non-OCUL) / Reciprocal Borrowers." They are also permitted to apply for a Guest Internet Account that will allow them to use a McMaster University library computer in person (only) to access many of their electronic resources. See McMaster's list of Electronic Products Which Do NOT Permit Walk-in Users.

Inter-library Loans (ILL)

The library has access to the holdings of major libraries around the world, which can be searched using the library catalogue. Books and articles that are not available at Redeemer or McMaster may be requested via ILL at no charge to faculty. Send your ILL requests to ILL@redeemer.ca. Allow two weeks for delivery. We will notify you when the requested item arrives. Retired faculty are allowed 5 free ILL requests; for subsequent requests they will be charged the full cost.

Library Instruction for your students

Tours, workshops and classes are provided to explain methods and materials for library research. Customized course-related library instruction can be requested by contacting a librarian, and is recommended if a research paper is a course requirement. Requests for class instruction must be made at least two weeks in advance to allow for scheduling and preparation.

Paper and Digital Copying Guidelines

Redeemer's license with Access Copyright provides students, faculty and staff permission to copy more than what is permitted under the Canadian Copyright Act.

What may I copy?

You may copy portions of any published work in Access Copyright’s repertoire. Search for your title by using their Look-up tool. For example:

How can I create and distribute copies?

For published works in Access Copyright’s repertoire, you can:

Photocopy, fax, scan, print or fax copies
Store copies on a hard drive, USB stick or on a Secure Network (e.g. Discovery)
Transmit by email, upload or post copies within a Secure Network (e.g. Discovery)
Project and display copies, such as on overheads, on LCD or plasma monitors, or interactive whiteboards.
Make copies for the purposes of interlibrary loan, creating alternate format copies and managing library collections
Create Course Collections (e.g. course packs or Discovery links). Course collections are paper compilations of published works and digital copies of published works that are emailed, linked or hyperlinked, posted, uploaded to or stored on a Secure Network as part of a course of study.

How much may I copy?

You may copy up to 20% of a book or:

An entire article from a magazine, journal or newspaper
a complete chapter, short story, poem or an entire artistic work

There are no limits on the quantity of copies you can make. More information is available at http://www.accesscopyright.ca.

Can I request permission to copy beyond the limits?

You can request permission to copy from 20% to 25% of a covered title on a pay-per-use basis (12 cents per page) and permission can be requested through the lookup tool.

Reporting of Copies

All copying for paper course packs must be logged and reported as well as all copying of 20% to 25% of a covered title.

Implications for Course Packs

If you, as a faculty member, create a course pack for your students, you have the digital option of putting all the pieces of the course pack on Discovery (Moodle) or you can create a paper course pack which will be sold to students in the bookstore. If you opt for the paper version, our institution will need to maintain records of all the copies made and we need to specify the title, excerpt title, publisher, author or authors (where known), the ISBN/ISSN number (where known), the number of pages in the Published Work, the specific pages copied, the total number of pages copied and the number of sets made. The making of paper course packs includes staff time, photocopying/printing, binding, etc. and all the costs will be included in setting the cost of the course pack for the student.

If you create a digital course pack on Discovery, our institution does not have to report the individual items and there are no costs for the student other than costs associated with printing the items themselves should they wish to do so. If you have a printed version of an article, the article can be scanned at the photocopiers and emailed to yourself and then you will have an electronic copy that can be put on Discovery. If you are not a user of Discovery at this time, the IT department will help you set up a course on Discovery and post digital copies.

Recommendation to Create Digital Course Packs on Discovery

Given the cost to students and given the amount of staff time to create the physical course packs and complete the reports, it is recommended that you create digital course packs wherever possible.

Discovery

Faculty members are encouraged to post their course readings online via Discovery. Print materials in course packs can be scanned to PDF and emailed using the copy machines in the library. Then links to these documents can be added to a Discovery page. From the Discovery course management system, all students can access the readings simultaneously.

Redeemer’s web-based course management system allows you to enhance your courses with links to internet resources, online discussion forums, course notes and announcements, etc. If you want to add an article to your Discovery page, you may do so if the library owns it or acquires it through inter-library loan (in either print or electronic format). For example, if the library subscribes to a journal in print format, you may scan an article and make it available via Discovery. Also, you may print out an article from one of our subscription databases and place it on reserve in the library. For more information on how to get started with Discovery, contact the IT department.

Course packs

Course packs sold in the book store may include anything for which we get permission from Access Copyright (copyright licensing agency) and pay royalties. The purpose of a course pack is to make available to students materials that are not already available through our library. Copyright fees (for articles not available at Redeemer) are included in the cost of the course pack–so the practice is perfectly legal. Faculty must pay for the royalties of their copy of a course pack. Under the photocopy license agreement, every course pack produced at Redeemer must be logged with royalties remitted to Access Copyright. Whether it is assembled for student purchase or made available free of charge to the professor, it is still considered a course pack if it contains more than one publication. When you place the order for your course pack, you will need to submit a budget number for the royalties of your copy as well your students’ copies.

Suggestions for Library Purchase

Departmental faculty, in conjunction with their department head are invited to participate in selecting materials for the library. The library’s priorities are:

to provide a collection that supports our undergraduate program.
to build up subject areas where students regularly are writing research papers.

Students in their 3^rd and 4^th years (and faculty) may need to use inter-library loans to supplement our resources.

What the library would like from faculty:

Familiarize yourself with the library. Make sure we have enough books for your 1^st and 2^nd year courses.
Submit your requested titles through this form.
Library staff will always check to make sure we don’t already have a title before we place an order. However, you might like to search our catalogue yourself to see what else we have on a topic when you’re considering a title.
Many of our orders take several months to come in. We need to have most of our orders out in the spring for books that will be on our shelves the following September. If you need certain books for the winter (January) term, be sure to have the orders placed by early September.
We discourage direct buying (e.g. at conferences, book stores). The savings are not usually greater than the discounts we already get as a library. If you bring in your receipts, we will reimburse you only if we have enough money left and if we don’t already have the book in our collection.