For students

Physical reserves items are available in the libraries and circulate for 3 hours at a time. They can be manually renewed once for an additional 3 hours and are for MIT-only use. E-books may be checked out directly from the Libraries site.

Required texts are in the libraries’ course reserves system. Search course reserves by course number, title, or instructor name.

See your class site in Canvas for digital and electronic materials faculty have made available.

For faculty/instructors

Consider online materials for your courses

Please reconsider using textbooks to ensure equitable access for all students. Many textbook publishers, such as Pearson, Cengage, and McGraw Hill don’t allow libraries to purchase electronic copies of textbooks. Some alternatives include:

• Search Our Collections and link to content from our collection of electronic resources. See more information on e-books and streaming media.
• Adopt open educational resources (OER) that are freely available and allow for re-use and modification.
• Select alternate course materials available electronically in consultation with your liaison librarian.
• If you are the author of a textbook used in an MIT class, the MIT Libraries can work with you to make the textbook available to students. Please Ask Scholarly Communications for more information.
• Suggest a purchase of e-materials.
• Request a scan from the Libraries’ print collections through our Scan & Deliver service or request something the Libraries do not own. See Scanning requests for complete information.

Submit your textbook information – (aka Textbook Information Provisioning – TIP)

An outcome of the Higher Education Act of 2010 (HEOA) was a federal mandate that requires faculty/instructors to make information regarding all required and recommended course materials available to students during pre-registration.  This allows students to consider the cost of course materials when deciding their class schedules.

Course material details are made available to students in MIT’s Online Subject Listing as well as the MIT Coop’s textbook site.

If a class requires a textbook:

• Submit a new request or cancel/update existing requests via the MIT Coop AIP (Adoption Ingest Portal)
• Required textbooks will be added to the Libraries course reserves. We will attempt to provide electronic access first, but if that is not purchasable, we will put a physical copy (or copies) on reserve in the library that has the most relevant collections to your subject.

If a class does not require a textbook:

• Submit that information via the MIT Coop AIP. This information is important for students when they consider a class and ensures MIT fully complies with the federal mandate.

Upload or link materials to your course management system

For help adding content:

• Canvas has help pages for adding content.
• Please visit the MIT Canvas Guide for Instructors for more information on the campus-wide instance of Canvas.
• Learn how to review course materials for copyright and fair use.

Need more help?

• See our course reserves FAQ
• Contact us: lib-res@mit.edu