Dear instructors,

As you prepare for the fall semester, we know that many of you are trying to make sure your students have online access to assigned readings. The Library is ready and able to help as much as we can with this.

The History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library will purchase ebook versions of books on your syllabus, if available, at your request.

If you can, before you send a purchase request, please check the library catalog to see if we already have an ebook version. In the library catalog, you’ll now find ebooks that we have purchased (check that UIUC has access –ebooks held only by other I-Share libraries can’t be used here).

If a book is available via the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service, this is the equivalent of having a print copy on reserve: only one person can use it at a time, but there’s an excellent queuing mechanism that should make it fairly easy for students to “share.”

If we don’t already have electronic access, or if you think your students will need more access than HathiTrust provides, you are welcome to send us purchase requests (email hpnl@library.illinois.edu) and we will purchase if available.

Another good option: if you are assigning less than 49% of a book, send scanning requests to Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan. Please send one request per chapter, in priority order (they’ll let you know when they reach the legal limit), and please note in the Notes field that the request is for fall instruction. You can then share these scans with your students on your course site.

If you need streaming media, please request via the Video Purchase Request Form.

And always feel free to email us (hpnl@library.illinois.edu) with questions!

Best wishes,

History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library