UIS Library News

Welcome to the Fall Semester at UIS! The faculty and staff at Brookens Library are here to offer skills, services, and collections that will engage your students, enhance their academic success, and add to a lifelong journey of learning. The Faculty Resources Guide, a comprehensive tool that is a key resource, contains much of the following information. We encourage you to bookmark the Guide for easy access or find it on the Library’s webpage under the “Resources” drop-down menu. Please feel free to contact the library faculty or staff at any time with your questions.

Course Reserves

The Library provides electronic course reserves for materials in our collection, some personal copies, or, in some cases, items we can acquire. Reserves are supplemental materials and resources that professors have identified for use in a specific course. Course reserves are posted as links to your Canvas course. 

Reserve requests should be submitted at least 2 weeks (3 weeks for streaming media) prior to the date the material is needed for use. This lead time is crucial to ensure timely access for your students. If the Library does not have current access to a requested item and we need to order it, the reserve request may take additional time to fulfill. Request items using the Course Reserve Form.

What can I put on Course Reserves?

• Book chapter(s) or small excerpt(s) from a book. The amount we can use per book is limited by fair use. 
• Journal Articles
• eBooks
• A short story, essay, or short poem
• A chart, graph, diagram, drawing, cartoon, or picture from a book, periodical, or newspaper
• Streaming Video (please review the streaming video guidelines below before placing requests for streaming videos)

What items cannot be placed on Course Reserve?

• Videos from streaming services such as Hulu or Netflix. 
• Titles from the Criterion collection that are not available to license from Kanopy
• Titles from PBS that are not available to license from Kanopy or Swank
• Digitization of DVDs with DRM

Streaming Media/Video Requests

Providing streaming videos for your class requires that streaming rights be licensed. Brookens Library supports the curricular need for streaming videos by subscribing to multiple streaming video collections where rights have already been obtained. Locating and using a title we have licensed through a streaming media database is the fastest and most cost-effective way to use streaming media in your class.

• Our primary streaming platform is Kanopy, a streaming video collection covering a broad variety of subjects, including documentaries, films, and more.
• Swank Digital Campus is a streaming video collection licensed for classroom use.

Once you have identified the title(s) you’d like to use in your class, submit a course reserve form, and we’ll provide a direct link to the video in your Canvas course.

Instruction/Consultation Requests

The Information Literacy and Academic Outreach (ILAO) department, comprised of three faculty librarians, has determined that in order to ensure efficient and consistent service, they will collaborate to serve all departments, moving away from the previous practice of an assigned-liaison model. To make it easier to contact librarians for course instruction or consultations, ILAO librarians will respond to instruction requests submitted via the Instruction Request Form or you can contact any librarian by submitting your question(s).

Two Opportunities to Waive Article Processing Charges (APCs)

First, through the University of Illinois System, UIS faculty have the opportunity to waive Article Processing Charges (APCs) if publishing in an Elsevier journal. Authors will have the opportunity to opt-in to take advantage of these credits starting with papers accepted after January 1, 2024, and they will be available to be used on a first-come, first-served basis. More details are available upon request for UIS faculty curious about or intending to publish in Elsevier journals. Please contact University Librarian Pattie Piotrowski for more information.

Second, our membership in the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) allows for an agreement with Wiley’s hybrid and open access journals that will waive APCs on a first-come, first-served basis. Authors publish articles at no charge to them under a free-to-read Creative Commons license. CARLI membership includes 128 institutions in Illinois. VIP: For Wiley journals, manuscripts accepted for publication between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2028, are eligible.

I-Share Online Catalog

I-Share serves as the online public catalog for 94 CARLI member libraries. I-Share provides participating libraries with an online catalog of their own collection as well as a merged, union catalog of the holdings of all I-Share libraries, which supports resource sharing among participating libraries. Items requested online through I-Share are delivered to Brookens Library and you’ll receive an automated notification regarding pick-up.

State Journal-Register Subscription

The State Journal-Register (SJ-R) is now available online to all faculty, staff, and enrolled students through a subscription from Brookens Library. Off-campus, you will be asked to login using your netID and password. To read the SJ-R, access it through the Library’s webpage, then from the “Find Materials” drop-down menu, select “Databases.” That will take you to the A-Z list of resources, where you can choose “S” and select SJ-R. SJ-R is part of a new subscription to NewsBank which provides access to current and archived information from thousands of newspaper titles, as well as newswires, blogs, videos, broadcast transcripts, and other publications. Currently, NewsBank is listed on the right of the A-Z list, and can also be accessed under “N.” The State Journal-Register is a great way to keep in touch with local and regional news.

OER Grant Awarded

The University of Illinois Springfield has received a $102,668 Open Educational Resources (OER) grant from the Illinois Secretary of State. This grant aims to reduce students’ need to purchase textbooks by promoting the use of free learning materials.

The OER funding will enhance three UIS courses in public health, mathematics and public administration by introducing new test banks, games, infographics, tutorials, summaries, videos, quizzes and case studies. The project is expected to benefit around 200 students, leading to substantial cost savings exceeding $34,000, based on average textbook prices of $125 to $260 per student. The project will be led by Brookens Library at UIS, in collaboration with faculty members Brian Chen (public health), Suyang Yu (public administration), and Hei-Chi Chan (mathematics). The UIS Center for Online Learning, Research and Service, UIS Office of Research and Sponsored Program, and UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership will contribute to the grant. Researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will also offer their expertise. This grant is part of a larger state-wide initiative with academic libraries focusing on OER and coordinated by the Consortium for Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI). Brookens Library is a governing member of CARLI. The project will begin immediately and aims to introduce OER materials into the classroom by August 2025.

Thank you for your time and attention,

Pattie Piotrowski

University Librarian & Dean, Library Instructional Services