Q. I heard there is no more book budget, and I can’t request books to be ordered by the library anymore. Is that true?
A. While it is true that our materials budget is all earmarked for subscription-based resources, fortunately we have some income from restricted endowments that allow us to order books that support faculty teaching and research. Please feel free to send book requests to your librarian liaison. Sometimes, books are available electronically with multiple user access, so let us know if you prefer ebook format. Make sure to give us plenty of lead time!
Q. Can the library order a subscription to a particular journal?
A. The library keeps a wishlist of journals that have been requested, so please let your librarian liaison know your requests. Please be aware that with our limited budget, we have to cancel existing subscriptions to free up funding to obtain new subscriptions.
Q. How about ordering videos?
A. Please see our guide to Videos & Streaming Media for Faculty and use the form linked there to request video acquisitions. Please be aware that brand-new videos might not be on the market yet, and older titles may be out of distribution. Obtaining streaming rights may take longer, and is not always possible.
Q. Why can’t our students watch videos on Kanopy anymore?
A. As of September 2018, we no longer have access to on-demand videos from Kanopy because, at $150 per title per year, it is not an economically sustainable model for library acquisitions. Instead, we can only acquire videos, including Kanopy titles, by faculty request; all video licensing requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. We do have thousands of streaming videos available on several different platforms. For more information, please see our previous post. In addition, much of the Kanopy collection is available from the San Francisco Public Library, for which any California resident, including students, can have borrowing privileges.