Academic Skills Team: A guide for staff

The new university ‘Online Reading List’ system went live in January 2022 and all academic colleagues should be aware of how the system works.

Find out more about the new system via our introductory guide 

Integrated with Blackboard or MS Teams, the new software has lots of useful additional functionality. For example, you can enrich your reading lists by,

• adding notes about sections you wish students to focus upon,
• ordering resources for addition to University Library stock as you add them to your list in one seamless process
• monitoring usage of suggested texts

The Library has a digital-first approach to purchasing and priority is given to books included within online reading lists. This means that the library will purchase primarily digital copies of books and journals, where these are available, and the purchasing process is driven by the completion and updating of online reading lists in the official University application (Leganto). 

For more information about online reading lists visit our Reading Lists Online page.

If you wish to request new book purchases, these must be made through the online reading list attached to the specific module for which the books are needed. The document below explains how to use the appropriate Reading List Online software features when adding an item to your reading list to trigger a new purchase requests.

Staffordshire University Library and Learning Services will prioritise the acquisition of the first three "Essential" items on module reading lists prepared using the university reading list software. Further "Essential", "Recommended" and "Background" items may be purchased subject to budget. 

These three titles will be purchased according to the Library's book ordering formula. Please ensure the three most relevant titles are either shown in the ‘Essentials’ section (and tagged with the Essential and Purchase Request tags) or tagged with "Essential and "Purchase Request" if added elsewhere to the list. The correct tagging is important and resources will only be ordered on the basis of the tags provided.

If you have any queries about this, or have problems completing the information required for a new purchase please contact us on readinglists@staffs.ac.uk

Ebook Availability

The Library has a digital-first approach to purchasing. However, not all books are available for libraries to buy as ebooks. Some reasons may prevent the library from ordering a digital copy include:

• Some titles don't exist as ebooks.
• Some ebooks are only available for individual purchase - the library has to follow an institutional purchase model.
• Some titles are not available to purchase in the UK.
• Some titles are too expensive or the license is too restrictive.

Please send any new journal requests to your Academic Librarian and Skills Tutor. Please note for print journals we will only subscribe to print journals which do not have a suitable electronic alternative available unless a business case is submitted. We review the journal collection annually and new titles will only be considered during this review.

All new requests should be accompanied with a learning and teaching business case, such as a module descriptor, where it will feature in reading lists and how it will be integrated into learning and teaching. Please note, most publishers only allow subscriptions to start in January.

Copyright Fee Paid Articles

The library can obtain copyright fee paid copies of individual articles for use in teaching, this is through the EHESS service provided by the British Library, for more details contact the Library team via e-mail at readinglists@staffs.ac.uk

Fulfilment time is dependent on the request and the information you provide. 

We recommend allowing a minimum of 28 days from request to delivery – but in periods of high demand these times may be increased. 

Help us to reduce the time by checking availability of items within the library first before sending and providing detailed title information to help us to process your request quickly. 

Print books ordered are subject to availability and delivery times from our suppliers.  Fulfilment time for these items may be increased.

A business case for a new course should include any library resources that will need to be purchased and added to the University’s library collection. It is helpful if the Library is informed of any library resource implications before the approval of any course so that the Library can provide advice and include in future budgetary forecasts.

Partnerships

For existing electronic resources, such as, journals, online databases and ebooks, the licences may not include access by the partnership course. To be legally compliant an add-on to the licence may be required which often incurs an extra cost to the University. It should also be noted that occasionally some suppliers may prohibit partnership access, for example if the partner is in a particular country or because of commercial restrictions.

The Library can provide further advice, as well as representation at validation events.

For more details contact:

Alison Pope - Learning and Academic Skills Manager,
A.J.Pope@staffs.ac.uk.

This policy provides a framework for the development of the Library's collections to ensure that the Library supports and facilitates excellence in learning, teaching and research.

For more information about purchasing contact either

• Paul Mahoney, Head of  Library and Learning Services
  Paul.mahoney@staffs.ac.uk
   
• Julie Adams. Library Digital Developer
  ​​​​​​​j.f.adams@staffs.ac.uk