Faculty Services

LIBRARY COURSE RESERVE

Course Reserve materials are kept behind the circulation desk for students to check out.

• Each semester we place one copy of each required casebook and other course materials on reserve for your students.  If your course materials are not on the bookstore list, please contact LawLibRef@shu.edu to ensure that we make your course materials available to your students.  
• If you have reading or other material you'd like to put on Course Reserves for the semester, contact LawLibRef@shu.edu. 

LIBRARY-SPECIAL RESERVE

In order to place materials on Special Reserve, faculty members should send an e-mail  to christy.smith@shu.edu which:

1. Clearly identifies the professor and the course for which the request is being made;
2. Clearly identifies the material to be placed on Special Reserve or submits copies of the material to be placed on Special Reserve; and
3. Provides instructions concerning any special lending periods.  (All Special Reserve books are lent for three hours, unless otherwise instructed by the faculty member).

One (1) copy of requested Special Reserve books will be available at the Circulation/Reserve Desk THREE DAYS AFTER RECEIPT OF THE FACULTY MEMBER'S REQUEST.  An electronic copy of requested articles will be made to requesting professors available as soon as possible to distribute to students via Blackboard or email.

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Please consult the following guide for more information on Anti-Racist teaching resources, including alternative textbook suggestions: Anti-Racist Pedagogy in Law Schools: Advice and Assistance for Faculty

Working with the Rodino Center Law Library, faculty are advised to be aware of copyright limitations and exceptions and to be responsible users of copyrighted works. Most educational uses fall under copyright limitations and exceptions, we should be cognizant of fair use and some educational purposes may require more consideration. These guidelines are intended to help faculty make decisions.

SHU Copyright Policies

• SHU Copyright Policy

Library Faculty and Staff Copying/Scanning Policy

The Rodino Center complies with copyright law (U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, 90 Stat 2541). When copying material, we follow provisions of the "fair use" section (Section 107) and consider the factors laid out in that section:

• The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.
• The nature of the copyrighted work.
• The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
• The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyright work.

Faculty Decisions and Responsibilities

Displaying or performing works in the physical classroom

Under the exception in Section 110(1), in a classroom  (i.e. face-to-face instruction), it is permissible to display or perform works, in their entirety, provided that the copy used has been lawfully made. It is understood that any license associated with the work applies.  This does not apply to broadcast or posting online, which are assessed instead under fair use.

Scenario: I am a Seton Hall Law professor interested in showing to my students in the classroom a DVD of a documentary. It’s a lawfully made  version. Is this OK?

Yes, as long as there is no license associated with the work that would prohibit this.

Scenario: I am a Seton Hall Law professor and would like to stream a documentary from Netflix in my classroom. Is this OK?

Netflix permits one-time educational screenings: "one-time screening" means that you can't hold screenings several times in one day or one week - but if, for example, you're an educator who wants to show the film once a semester over multiple semesters, that's okay. The documentary may only be accessed via the Netflix service, by a Netflix account holder. The screening must be non-profit and non-commercial. That means you can’t charge admission, fundraise, solicit donations, or accept advertising or commercial sponsorships in connection with the screening. Read more information on your ability to use Netflix content for educational screening.  

Providing electronic access to course materials in online and hybrid teaching

You are highly encouraged to link directly to items in the library catalog or hosted legally online rather than upload PDFs to any learning management system but if this is unavoidable, copies of unlicensed materials that fall under the fair use exception after a reasonable assessment can be posted directly to, for example, Blackboard.

SCENARIO: A professor  wants to scan an article from a copyrighted journal and add it to their web page, a freely accessible public site, not Blackboard.

FAIR USE? A likely no - the professor cannot guarantee it is being used for educational purposes and it is not being limited to their students.

The best ways to fall inside the fair use limitation 

Fair use is a limitation in U.S. law that may justify uses of copyrighted works without prior permission or payment of a royalty. Making fair use assessments is the responsibility of the instructor.

The following considerations are important when assessing fair use for all teaching. 

• Limit the amount used. An effort to only use a limited section of materials, specifically only what is needed, for educational or scholarly use weighs toward fair use. If you only need your students to read a few pages, please do not post the whole book.  You may link to an entire eBook via the library catalog but you may not repost a PDF of it.

• Limit access only to students in class. Please limit access to the enrolled students - this is done by posting to a system like Blackboard and monitoring your course roster on that learning management system.

• Limit access to the term of the class. Disable or delete posted materials at the end of a class term. 

• Discourage further distribution. You can include a note on your syllabus discouraging students from downloading, copying, and distributing any materials you have posted on the learning management system. 
• If the copyrighted material is still being marketed or are fairly new and still can be purchased as a "newer" item, consider licensing the item or requesting it be purchased in electronic format by the library. 
• Always provide attribution. When posting items to learning management system, please provide a full citation on the materials.
• Use works lawfully. Do not use pirated copies.

Please feel free to refer your students to the law librarians for research consultations. A law librarian can help your students with selecting paper topics, and to ensure that the papers you read are well-researched.

If you are advising a student on their AWR, you can refer them to our AWR Research Guide for guidance on selecting and researching their topic.

The Law Librarians would be happy to come to your classroom and present on how to conduct research in a particular subject area. We can also provide a refresher or orientation to regulatory research, legislative history, and more. Contact us at LawLibRef@shu.edu for more information or to talk through other ways we can help with research instruction in your classroom.

Access Archived Exams: 

Issues accessing exams should be referred to Ana Santos.  Please get the students' name and the exam they were trying to access.  

Archive your Old Exams:

• Exams provided to students as of Spring 2017, please contact Michael McBride
• Exams provided to students prior to Spring 2017, please contact Helena Espirito-Santo