How does Course Reserves work

Course Reserves allows your library to create a subset of high use items in the library with a much shorter loan period so that patrons taking a particular class have easier access to these materials. If your library chooses, Course Reserves can be configured to track the different circulation patterns for items on and off reserve (since low use items typically become high use when on reserve). Course Reserves also allows for circulation of material not in the library's catalog (e.g. a professor's personal copy of an item or photocopied material) to be placed on reserve. Some libraries use Course Reserves to create a reading list within their WebPAC without permanently changing locations or loan rules for the materials on the list.

Course Reserves involves creating course records (one record per course) that can be accessed in a number of ways. Like the bibliographic record, the course record is a stand-alone record, meaning that it does not have to be linked to any other record. Course records can have links to other records, such as bibliographic and item records. These links can be made active or inactive depending on when the item is or will be on reserve. It is these links that enable Millennium to see the items on reserve, and display the item(s) in the WebPAC as being on reserve for a course. For a visual representation of how the different Millennium record types link to one another, see the record types chart on CSDirect.

When an item is placed on Course Reserves, Millennium stores the item's original Item Type and Item Location. These original settings revert back when the item is taken off reserve.