About: Policies

Building Access

The library building is open to

• Manhattan College students, faculty, staff, and administrators
• Manhattan College alumni (contact Valerie Jimenez at least a few days in advance of your first visit)
• Faculty of any college or university
• Guests of Manhattan College students, faculty, staff, and administrators
• Students, faculty, staff, and administrators from charter members of the WALDO library consortium
• Manhattan College campus tour groups
• Off-Duty NYPD personnel
• Other visitors with specific, advance permission from the Access Services Librarian, the College Archivist, or the Library Director.

All Manhattan College students, faculty, staff, and administrators must present a Green Pass upon entering the building.

All other visitors must obtain a Visitor’s Green Pass and present it when entering the building.

Guests of Manhattan College students, faculty, staff and administrators must sign in at the Circulation Desk.

Unaccompanied minors are not allowed in the library.

Due to space concerns, the library building is open only to current Manhattan College students, faculty, staff, and administrators, and off-duty NYPD personnel the last week of classes and the week of final exams.

Individuals may be required to leave the building if their presence is considered detrimental to the operation of the library.

Access to Online Resources, Computers, and Printers

Off-campus access to the Library’s online resources is available only to current Manhattan College students, faculty, staff and administrators.

However, other visitors who would like to use the Library’s online resources, computers, or printers may request a guest login at the Circulation Desk.

Borrowing Privileges

Books and other physical materials may be borrowed by

• Manhattan College students, faculty, staff, and administrators
• Manhattan College alumni with alumni ID cards
• Faculty of any college or university
• Students, faculty, staff, and administrators from charter members of the WALDO library consortium
• Off-Duty NYPD personnel
• Other visitors with specific, advance permission from the Access Services Librarian, the College Archivist, or the Library Director.

***Off-campus access to library material requires a Jaspernet username and password***

Borrowing Policies

A valid ID card from Manhattan College or MC Glance App is required to borrow materials from the Manhattan College Library.

Study Room Reservation Policy for Student Interviews

Students can reserve study rooms only for virtual interviews (e.g., for jobs, internships, graduate school admission, etc.)—not for other purposes.
Reservations must be made at least 24 hours before the virtual interview, and reservations for a Saturday, Sunday, or Monday must be made by the previous Friday.
To reserve a room, contact the Library Operations Coordinator (libraryadmin@manhattan.edu).
Study Room reservations cannot exceed three hours in duration.
Students cannot request a particular study room; the room will be assigned by the Library.

Filming in the Library

• Requests to film in the library from commercial groups outside of Manhattan College require approval from the Marketing and Communications Office.

• Requests from students to film in the library for personal or academic projects must ask permission at the Circulation Desk on the 5th floor.

Gifts (Donations) Policy

The Library will be glad to accept donations (gifts) of 30 or fewer books and/or DVDs.  We are not accepting donations of journal/magazine issues or other media such as videocassettes or CDs.  Gifts are accepted with the understanding that all ownership rights held by the donor are transferred to the Library, and that the Library may dispose of gift items in any way -- by adding them to the library collection, giving them to other libraries, selling them, or discarding them, among other things.

The Library does not accept large donations -- more than 30 items -- due to the high cost of processing and evaluating them. For donations of 30 or fewer books and/or DVDs, please contact Susanne Markgren, Assistant Director of the Library for Technical Services at susanne.markgren@manhattan.edu, or 718-862-7997.

Online Textbooks in the Library Collection

Faculty often request that the Library acquire electronic versions of the textbooks used in their courses. Unfortunately, that option is not available for many of the more prominent textbook publishers. Specifically, publishers such as Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Oxford University Press, and Pearson will not allow libraries to acquire e-book versions of their textbooks.

Unlike print books, e-books are invariably licensed rather than sold. That allows publishers to restrict

• who can license the content
• who can access the content, and for how long
• the extent to which users can read, download, copy, and print chapters, pages, or excerpts of the text.

Many publishers have found that they can maximize revenue by marketing their products solely to individual users.

Students in courses that use these textbooks must purchase print copies, if they’re available, or acquire the e-books directly from the publishers or their agents. In some cases, the Library can acquire print copies for Course Reserve, but we cannot normally afford more than one copy of each text.

We encourage faculty to investigate alternatives such as

• using textbooks from publishers that allow libraries to license their products
• using books that are suitable for course instruction but marketed and sold as conventional books rather than textbooks
• using open educational resources (OERs)--online textbooks and instructional materials that are freely available online
• within Moodle, posting or linking to individual chapters and articles to the extent allowed by the Fair Use and Educational Use provisions of copyright law.
• working with the subject librarians to identify alternatives to the textbooks available from publishers such as Cengage, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson.

Open Educational Resources are especially attractive to many faculty, since they are freely available online without restrictions on access, use, downloading, or printing.

The Mason OER Metafinder of George Mason University can be used to identify OER textbooks and other instructional materials in a wide range of subject areas.

SUNY OER Services also provides a rapidly growing set of OER texts, videos, interactive exercises, problem sets, and assignments.

Reserve Policy

Fall 2021/Spring 2022 Course Reserve Updates:

• For the best student experience, please use hard copy reserves only when necessary.  Please consider making all required course materials available online.
• If you need assistance acquiring excerpts from books for your Moodle site, please contact circulation@manhattan.edu
• DVD’s that are on reserve still circulate. Their loan period is now 24 hours.

   
Placing Materials on Reserve: 

• A Reserve Request Form is needed for each item.
• Reserve requests for items in the library's collection should be submitted at least one week before they will be needed. Items not in the library's collection should be requested even earlier, as it may take several weeks to order and process. 
• Reserve requests need to be submitted and updated each semester.
• For information on adding, or linking, material to your Moodle Course click here.
• Personal copies are no longer being accepted. If you wish to place a book or DVD on course reserve that the library does not own, you can either 1) request that we purchase a copy using the purchase request form, or 2) donate your personal copy to the library.

Copyright Guidelines for Reserve Material:

• U.S. copyright law governs the reproduction of copyrighted materials. 
• The Fair Use and Educational Use provisions of copyright law allow materials to be reproduced in many cases. There are cases in which the copyright holder’s permission is required.
• Reproducing electronic material may be limited by copyright law and/or license agreements. 

If you have any questions, please contact the Access Services Librarian.

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