electronic reserves

[Steve Melamut]

The value of electronic reserves from the students point of view is that
they don't have to come to the library, stand in line at the circulation
desk, stand in line for the copiers. The material can't be stolen or
mutilated.

Additionally, the nature of the materials has expanded. On-line materials
can include
links to other sources, multimedia, powerpoint presentations. I am taking
a class using a system created by West publishing that allows posting
readings to a web page owned by west. It is under password access. Both
the students and the professor can post to the page and include links to
all of Westlaw's holdings...

I admit that for many faculty members the primary result of electronic
reserves will be that the publishers will be able to easily see that the
faculty has been violating the existing copyright law year after year. By
that I mean not only the law as Congress wrote it, but the more liberal
interpretation that ALA created in 1982. However, for many students and
faculty members it will provide a new and useful means of communicating.

steve melamut
third year law student
University of North Carolina
melamut at email.unc.edu

(I am responding to the last post that I saw - I have not seen the entire
thread of this discussion)