Reading Lists: a guide for teaching staff

This document is the Library’s response to a request by teaching staff on the Library Policy Committee for some clarification and guidance on how the Library and teaching staff can work together to enhance students’ experiences of working with reading lists.

As you know, the “reading list” comes in a variety of formats, from lists appearing in course handbooks, to short lists handed out after lectures. The intention here is not to tell you how to create a reading list, but to inform you of:

• best practice in College
• the sorts of problems that students have with reading lists when in the Library and how these can be overcome
• the timescales needed by the Library to acquire materials
• the potential benefits of using the VLE for your reading lists.

From the Library’s standpoint, a major problem is that students come into the Library with reading lists that the Library has never seen. Reading lists are not automatically sent to the Library. Please send them to the Subject Librarian for your School - for timescales, read on.

New Courses

It is essential to consult with your Subject Librarian prior to and during the new course/programme process. They will give you guidance on how much money is available for collection development.

Timescale: the ordering of new materials takes 2-3 months. There is a fast-track system for exceptional orders which can take 3-4 weeks if an item is readily available.

Requests for new journals and electronic resources (recurrent expenditure) may be subject to budgetary constraints.

The Library works towards a book / student ratio of 1 copy per 10 students for essential textbooks and has a range of loan statuses to aid circulation:

• 3 week
• 1 week
• 1 day (can be borrowed overnight)
• Reference only
• Reference only in the Reading Room Collection, a discrete area of the Library for key texts.

If your reading list is in an entirely new area, the Library’s resources may have to be built up gradually over a number of years. Your Subject Librarian can advise on how this can be achieved and what neighbouring libraries can offer in the interim.

Existing courses

Please send reading lists to your Subject Librarian 2-3 months in advance of the course start date, or as soon as practically possible, indicating any new additions and changes. Books take on average 6 weeks to reach the Library shelves though foreign-language and second-hand material can take longer.

Subject Librarians are happy to receive book orders directly from individual members of staff by telephone, email, marked publishers’ catalogues or via the online book order form.

Please note: as the Library must follow College financial procedures and use recognised suppliers, it is not possible to make last-minute purchases from bookshops.  By using certain suppliers, the Library benefits from educational discounts and the material arrives shelf-ready which makes it available more quickly to students.

Presentation of reading lists

Please help your students find materials by avoiding the following:

• incorrect references
• incomplete references
• use of non-standard abbreviations for key texts and journals
• incorrect web addresses
• annotations leading students to the incorrect electronic database (e.g. stating that an article is in JSTOR when it is in Project Muse).

What it is helpful to include:

• an indication of which texts students are expected to buy
• guidance for undergraduates on which are the most important texts to read
• an indication of which books and articles are available electronically (you do not need to specify the name of the service provider as access is often available through a number of services)
• guidance on how students can check the availability of electronic articles using the authority listing of c.20,000 journals on the Library web site
• the inclusion of P/C numbers of photocopies in the Reading Room Collection (students do have difficulties finding photocopies in the Reading Room and sometimes this is because of a mismatch between details on the reading list and the details on the catalogue. If the item is a photocopy of a book chapter, the title on the catalogue is the title of the chapter not the title of the book, and the author on the catalogue is the author of the chapter not the overall editor of the book.)
• an indication of those items not held in the Library and where they might be available.

Please note: if you include shelfmarks of Reading Room Collection items, please do not include Bliss shelfmarks (the older classification using letters) as these are currently being re-classified to Dewey. Also please regularly check URLs as they change frequently.

Coursepacks

The Library is often asked about these. The Library does not produce coursepacks but certain Schools do. The Library offers copyright advice for both print and electronic coursepacks. See the Library's Copyright Guide for more details.

Blackboard (VLE)

If you use Blackboard you can make your reading lists more interactive and dynamic. Within the VLE a reading list can include:

• links to the Library catalogue
• links to articles in the e-journals to which we subscribe
• links to ebooks such as the books on Oxford Scholarship Online
• live internet links
• links to articles and book chapters that you have written, if you have made them available in the College’s ePrints Archive
• links to UK published articles and book chapters digitised by the Library under the CLA Photocopying and Scanning Licence (the Library can tell you how to do this legally and advise on rights clearance for anything not covered by the CLA Licence)
• links to Word files, PowerPoint presentations, subject specific learning objects etc.

Examples of best reading list practice:

• a standard template for all reading lists in a School, distinguishing between essential and recommended reading
• a standard template for all course handbooks in a School which includes correct information about using Birkbeck and other libraries etc.
• a School policy to make all School reading lists available on the VLE
• a School policy to regularly send reading lists to the Library for annual checking.