Building a Better Course Reserve System

Abstract

SUMMARY Academic libraries continually face the challenge of providing more and better services to their patrons within an environment of stagnant budgets. It is in this context that the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Library recently undertook a two-year project to address the limitations of an outdated, labor intensive, largely paper-based course reserve service. We were determined to develop an automated, web-based system that would make requesting, processing, and retrieving all course reserve material easier, faster, and more cost-effective regardless of format.