Glendale Community College Library Updates

The GCC Library is not currently circulating print books due to public health measures. Below are recommendations from the GCC Library for access to textbooks during campus closure.

The GCC Bookstore offers a variety of purchase and rental options for required textbooks, including less expensive online rentals through RedShelf. Students who would typically purchase their textbooks (with or without financial aid) should be encouraged to continue to do so.

A list of required textbooks is available in MyGCC Student Portal. Students can also look up their required books on the GCC Bookstore website. Student Affairs recommends ordering your books online and picking up in person from the walk-up window at the Bookstore.

To make an appointment to pick up your textbooks from the Bookstore, please sign up here: GCC Bookstore Appointment - Verdugo Campus.

The GCC Library continues to examine the required textbook list and purchase any titles that are available online through Library databases with multi-user access. To do this, we work from data provided by the Bookstore, so we ask faculty to consistently report their textbooks to the Bookstore.

We will contact faculty members whose required books are accessible online through the GCC Library. 

Faculty, if you would like to investigate alternative texts you can use in your courses in the future (including open educational resources, readings in the public domain, and licensed library materials), please contact Caroline Hallam, OER & DE Librarian, at challam@glendale.edu.

Note: RedShelf and VitalSource, vendors of online textbooks that were providing access free-of-charge during Spring 2020, have ended their emergency access. The Internet Archive has also ended unlimited simultaneous access through its National Emergency Library and has returned to loaning books to one user at a time. Free access through these vendors and organizations was a temporary, emergency measure.

The GCC Library is able to scan requested excerpts of books as searchable PDFs with OCR (Optical Character Recognition). The Library will provide as much support as possible within the limitations and allowances of U.S. U.S. Copyright Law and fair use guidelines.

The library is focusing on providing access to those students who typically access course reserves through the physical library, which remains closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Complete our Fair Use Checklist to see if you are a good candidate for an online reserves scanning request!

Limitations and Considerations for Scanning

• The Library reserves the right to refuse a scanning request if it does not fall within fair use.
• This service is not a replacement for purchasing required textbooks. Students who can purchase the required textbook should continue to do so.
• This service is not to be used to make a course zero textbook cost (ZTC).
• Requests for scans must be limited only to the content used in your course.
• Scanned material must be distributed within a closed system such as Canvas. Chapters of textbooks should only be released as and when needed; the entirety of books should never be distributed.
• Scanned items are intended for personal educational use only, and only for use during the time when public health measures prevent access to personal copies or a copy on physical reserve at the Library. Scanned material should be discarded once the physical copy on Reserve can be accessed when the physical Library reopens.

Please keep U.S. Copyright Law and fair use guidelines in mind if you or your division choose to scan textbooks/course materials to make them available to students. Not observing these laws and guidelines could put you and the College at risk of copyright infringement.

Faculty: Submit a Request

To request scanning of needed excerpts from books used in your courses, please fill out this form: Online Reserves Request Form.