Reserves provide equitable access to supplementary course readings and other materials required in support of the College of William and Mary curriculum.
Reserve materials may include books, journal articles, lecture notes, practice tests, audio recordings, video recordings, electronic files (including PowerPoint presentations, digitized photographs), and more.
Your professors may provide your course reserve readings as regular reserves and/or electronic reserves.
Regular reserves are any kind of material kept physically at a Reserves Desk. Regular reserves can include all of the types of materials noted above.
The Swem, Music, Geology, Chemistry, Physics, Law, Education, and Business libraries have Reserve Desks at which students may check out reserve materials. Check with your faculty member to see which of these libraries' Reserve Desks has your course's regular reserve materials.
At the Swem Library, the Reserve Desk is combined with the Circulation Desk and located on the first floor.
1. Open William and Mary's catalog and click on the Reserve Desk button.
2. Type in the instructor's name or course number and then click the appropriate button.
3. Check to see if the specific item you need is available. If so, write down the call number and present it and your W&M ID card to the Reserve Desk.
Regular reserves can generally be checked out for either 2 hours, 3 hours (usually for videos), overnight, or 3 days, depending on the faculty member's specifications. Some reserve materials must be used in the library, and there is audio-visual equipment available for audio and video recordings.
Some standard reserve loan periods:
Staff at the following Reserves Desks will be happy to help you.
Swem Library's Circulation/Reserves Desk |
757-221-3072 or swresv@wm.edu |
Music |
757-221-1090 |
Geology |
757-221-2094 |
Physics |
757-221-2559 |
Chemistry |
757-221-3539 |
Law |
757-221-3255 |
Education (Learning Resource Center) |
757-221-2311 |
Business (Professional Resource Center) |
757-221-2916 |
Electronic reserves are reserve materials that have been converted to electronic form and made available on the World Wide Web to current William and Mary students.
Most faculty make electronic reserve materials available on their Blackboard websites. Some faculty may have developed their own web pages for their courses.
To Find your Blackboard websites:
1. Go to blackboard.wm.edu
2. Login with your campus User Name and Password.
3. Search for your courses.
To view and print electronic reserves, you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader to your personal computer.
Full page: To open an electronic reserve to a full-page view, point to the document, right click, and choose Open in New Window. In some instances, you'll need to do this step in the frame before you open the document.
Printing: Please note that printing scanned electronic files (usually PDF files) can sometimes require several minutes per page. Printing is faster on non-networked computers.
Information Technology's Technology Support Center (757-221-HELP) can assist you with any technical problems in accessing your electronic reserves. Swem Library's Circulation/Reserves Desk (757-221-3072) may be able to answer questions about what materials faculty have submitted for regular reserves, which may duplicate their electronic reserves.
