Access to course readings may be difficult for students at the beginning of the semester due to shipping delays, financial aid delays, limited stock, and other issues. Faculty may request a limited number of scanned chapters from required textbooks to help provide initial access to course readings during the first few weeks of classes.
Please note the following:
- We are limited to scanning the textbooks that we already have in our collection. If you are unsure if the library has the title you require, you may search the library catalog. If the library does not own the title, but you own a copy, you can scan it yourself using the Adobe Scan app from an Android/iOS device.
- Due to copyright law, the library cannot scan significant portions of, or entire textbooks. We will make a Fair Use Evaluation of each request.
- Requests are not filled on weekends, non-instructional days, nor holidays.
- All documents will be scanned with OCR, to create machine-readable text.
- Scanned materials will be emailed to you when ready, typically within one week from the request.
Please only distribute these scans to students using your course site on Canvas, to ensure that access is limited to those enrolled in the course.
Other Academic Resources
You may also want to take this opportunity to explore resources that will fulfill the same academic needs as the original textbook, but at no cost to students.
The Los Rios libraries pay for access to excellent and wide-ranging research so that it can be used by anyone affiliated with the Los Rios colleges. Explore the Library’s Research Databases for relevant material, or reach out to the librarians for help.
Additionally, there are growing numbers of excellent Open Educational Resources that are freely available online. Many of these resources can act as direct replacements for commercial textbooks, and they are always free. If you need help searching for OER, you can always ask the librarians.