. @uofg faculty friends, we gotta talk about your course materials. I know that while August 14th is the deadline to submit your requests to have things put on reserve, you should absolutely do this before then. Ideally, *significantly* before then. Ideally, now.

If you are using a textbook, you're probably used to the @uglibrary putting a copy or two of it on reserve for students to access. We will very likely NOT be able to get an electronic version of that text for your students for the fall semester.

This is not our fault and if we could do it, we would. But we can't because textbook publishers literally DO NOT allow us to do that (more info on that here: https://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/news/requesting-course-reserve-materials-fall-2020).

The great news is that you have alternatives! You can license an alternative e-book (I know what you're thinking, but it can't be a textbook), use an #OER, or exercise fair dealing to excerpts from several titles.

But YOU have to set this process in motion. And this process takes time! It takes time for the library to find stuff for you, it takes time to make it available in other formats that are accessible and copyright compliant, and it takes time for you to evaluate it/see if it works.

Library staff also go on vacation. Many of them in the summer months. If you delay on submitting a request for course materials, the likelihood that it will take longer is extremely high. People will be on vacation, yes, but also it's a volume thing.

Course reserves staff usually have about 1100 requests in a given term. That is a lot of requests! Some of them are more time consuming to fulfill.

If we can't get your textbook in an electronic form (again, we probably can't, see above), the alternative options we can source for you might require you to rejig your teaching and/or assessments. You probably shouldn't leave this until the last two weeks before term, right?

The library has done a lot of promotion and awareness raising this summer about these challenges and how we can support you, but we need you to do us a solid and give us some lead time. I don't want to see anyone behaving badly toward us ever, but esp. when we've done all we can.

Putting in your requests now ensures we have the most time to give you, can do a more thorough search, and can get options back to you in enough time for you to feel ready to use them for the fall semester. It's a win-win for all involved.

I should say that it's actually a win-win-win because your students will ALSO have access to the materials they need to succeed from day 1.

All this to say that you should absolutely be thinking about course materials while you are redesigning your course for online delivery, especially especially ESPECIALLY if you tailor your content/assignments heavily to the text.

Anyway! Just a friendly reminder that material conditions are a real, true thing in academia (even though we don't like to think of ourselves as workers). Your time and your vacation is equally as important as our time and vacation, so adjust your behaviour accordingly, please.

Also a reminder that all of the budget cuts, overwork, and unfilled positions that you see affecting your dept and your faculty pals at other schools also definitely happened at the library too (and their library too). We're doing the best we can with what we've got!