Digitised Readings

You may wish to digitise extracts from print books or journals you believe will be in heavy demand. The Library provides a service for the scanning of in-copyright material for course use.

There are copyright implications in making electronic extracts available for your students. The Library is permitted to supply in-copyright extracts under the terms of the Copyright Licensing Agency's Higher Education Licence. You should not scan in-copyright materials yourself for course use in Moodle.

This licence covers all scanning of extracts for course material in copyright done by the University. Under the terms of this licence, all requests for digitised extracts should be directed to the Library via the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service. Mandatory single returns to the Copyright Licensing Agency means the decision has been taken to centralise scanning within the Library.

Library staff are responsible for coordinating your requests. Checks are made to ensure the requests fall within the terms of the licence and staff will arrange for the extracts to be made available via the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service. It is also possible to embed the links to the digitised extracts into your MOODLE pages. Please see your MOODLE administrator for help on how to embed links.

Any queries regarding the operation of the licence should be directed to the Library (library-readinglists@glasgow.ac.uk).

Summary of the CLA Higher Education Licence

The University of Glasgow has signed a blanket photocopying & scanning licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) to enable staff to provide printed and online course materials. The Copyright Licensing Agency has provided CLA User Guidelines [PDF] and Good Practice Guide [PDF] to support understanding of the CLA Higher Education Licence.

The Academic & Digital Development Service also provides information on copyright with regards to Moodle.

Photocopying

What does the licence allow?

Licence restrictions

  • The licence does NOT cover the following Categories of works: (i) printed music (including the words); (ii) maps, charts or books of tables; (iii) texts of public examination papers whether published individually or in collections; (iv) workbooks, work cards and assignment sheets; (v) privately owned documents issued for tuition purposes and limited to clientele who pay fees; (vi) bibles, liturgical works, orders of service; (vii) newspapers; (viii) industrial house journals and other free publications primarily for employees of commercial businesses, industrial undertakings or public services; (ix) any work on which the copyright owner has expressly and prominently stipulated that it may not be copied under the Licence.
  • You may make only enough copies to ensure that each student and teacher involved in the course has one copy.
  • Special provisions apply to copying for partially-sighted persons.
  • Limits apply to how much may be copied. In relation to any one course of study: the greater of 10% of any published edition, or:
    • in the case of a book, one complete chapter.
    • in the case of an article in an issue of a serial publication or in a set of conference proceedings, two whole articles.
    • in the case of an anthology of short stories or poems, one short story or poem not exceeding 10 pages in length.
    • in the case of a published report of judicial proceedings, the entire report of a single case.
  • Multiple Copies may be made from a Copy (i.e. not directly from the printed work) PROVIDED THAT (i) the University owns the printed work, or (ii) the copy has been obtained copyright-fee-paid from the British Library Document Supply Centre (or similar service) with the cover sheet attached; or (iii) you have the permission of the copyright owner in writing and can produce it on request.

Breach of terms of the licence

It should be noted that any users found to breach the terms of the licence will be subject to the University's disciplinary procedures.  Those concerning the use of IT & data protection for students are outlined in the University Regulations.

Scanning

Under the terms of this licence, all requests for digitised extracts should be directed to the Library via the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service. Mandatory single returns to the Copyright Licensing Agency means the decision has been taken to centralise scanning within the Library. You should not scan in-copyright materials yourself for course use in Moodle.

What does the licence allow?

  • The licence allows scanning of extracts for teaching purposes to staff and students on a particular course of study via a secure network.
  • Scanning is permitted from books and journals published in the UK, US, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, except from the excluded works that can be found using the CLA Check Permission Tool.
  • The work must either be owned by the University Library or by the Department, otherwise the library will obtain a copyright fee paid copy.
  • The scanned work will be made available through the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service.
  • Users registered for the specific course may view, download or print the item. Access to digitised readings is permitted for students registered on the specific course.

Licence restrictions

  • Limits apply to how much may be scanned. In relation to any one course of study: the greater of 10% of any published edition, or:
    • in the case of a book, one complete chapter.
    • in the case of an article in an issue of a serial publication or in a set of conference proceedings, two whole articles.
    • in the case of an anthology of short stories or poems, one short story or poem not exceeding 10 pages in length.
    • in the case of a published report of judicial proceedings, the entire report of a single case.
  • A scanned extract must maintain the structure, layout and authenticity of the original, therefore digital manipulation of any kind is not permitted except to make the copy accessible to users with visual impairments.
  • Each scanned extract must include a copyright notice stating the course it is scanned for and the details of the original from which it is taken.
  • Works already available in digital format may not normally be scanned.
  • Scanning for personal use is not covered by the licence.
  • Scanned items will be automatically rolled over for the next academic session unless the Library is notified they are not required any longer. Additional scanned items for courses can be requested via the Reading Lists@Glasgow system.
  • Please note the making of Digital Copies is not intended to substitute for the purchase of an original published edition (either printed or electronic) or the commissioning of an original artistic work.

Scanning of material not covered by the licence

The scanning of material published outside of the UK, US, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, is not covered by the CLA Higher Education Licence.

However, we may be able to seek copyright clearance from the publisher. Requests for material to be scanned are made in the same way as for material covered by the CLA Higher Education Licence and they should be directed to the Library (library-readinglists@glasgow.ac.uk).

Please note, requests for scanning of material not covered by our licence should be submitted well in advance of the course start date (at least 2 months) as obtaining copyright clearance can be time consuming.

Breach of terms of the licence

You should not scan in-copyright materials yourself for course use in Moodle. It should be noted that any users found to breach the terms of the licence will be subject to the University's disciplinary procedures.  Those concerning the use of IT & data protection for students are outlined in the University Regulations.

How to request digitised readings via the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service

Add information about page numbers/ chapter number that you would like to have digitised in the Note for library field in the relevant bookmark on your reading list.

  • To do so, log in to reading lists, go to your list and locate the title you wish to digitise from and click on the 3 dots on the right-hand side of the resource and select Note for library from the drop-down menu.
  • Add information about page numbers/ chapter number that you would like to have digitised in the 'Note for Library' field and click on 'Save'.
  • To add a digitisation request while bookmarking your resource, type the required digitisation details in the 'Note for Library' field.

Once you submit your reading list for review, Library staff will carry out all necessary copyright checks and you will be contacted if there are problems with any of the items that you requested to be digitised.

Before submitting requests for an extract to be digitised lecturers should ensure that they have not requested a print version of an additional extract from the same publication for the same course.

Library staff will contact you immediately prior to the start of the course to confirm that the material is available and provide you with a link to the digitised readings in Reading Lists @ Glasgow. You can then embed it in your Moodle course.

Any problems or queries regarding the material on the course or to request usage statistics, please contact the Library (library-readinglists@glasgow.ac.uk).

Please note the making of Digital Copies is not intended to substitute for the purchase of an original published edition (either printed or electronic) or the commissioning of an original artistic work. More information on scanning materials for teaching purposes can be found in the CLA User Guidelines published by the Copyright and Licensing Agency.

Common Queries

How do I request digitised readings via the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service? 

As part of Reading Lists @ Glasgow we offer a scanning service for in-copyright extracts from texts that will be in heavy demand for course use.

We can scan extracts for teaching purposes for staff and students at the University. The extracts must be for a particular course of study and are made available for the duration of the course through Reading Lists @ Glasgow.

We are permitted to supply these extracts under the terms of the Copyright Licensing Agency’s Higher Education Licence, which is signed by the University. 

  • We are permitted to scan from books and journals published in 30 different countries (including the UK and US), however please note that there are certain works that are excluded for scanning by the publisher.
  • The licence imposes limits on the amount that can be scanned from a title. Generally, we can scan one chapter or up to 10% of a book, or two articles or up to 10% from a journal issue.
  • If we already own or subscribe to the work as an e-book or e-journal we normally would not scan the extract but would link to the electronic text on the Reading List instead.

Please note that any users found to breach the terms of the licence will be subject to the University's disciplinary procedures. Those concerning the use of IT & data protection for students are outlined in the University Regulations.

How to request digitised readings

Please make any requests as soon as possible, preferably 10 days prior to the course start date, however we can usually provide the digitised readings much faster than this.

To make a request:

  • Log in to reading lists, go to your list and locate the title you wish to digitise from and click on the 3 dots on the right-hand side of the resource and select Note for library from the drop-down menu.
  • Enter the details of the request in to the ‘Note for Library Field’ then click ‘Save’. Please include as much information as possible (e.g. chapter title, page numbers, author).
  • To add a digitisation request while bookmarking your resource, type the required digitisation details in the Note for Library box.

Send the list for Review so that the Library receives your requests.


Once you have submitted your requests, the Library conducts copyright checks to ensure that the book or journal is covered for scanning under the CLA licence. If the checks are fine, then we go ahead and provide a scan of the extract.

The digitised extract will be accessible via the 'VIEW ONLINE' button in the reading list. A digitised reading will have the chapter details and ‘AVAILABLE ONLINE’ as a student note.

There is a copyright notice attached to all digitised readings stating what is permitted to do with the extract under the terms of the Copyright Licencing Agency (CLA) licence the University has signed. The digitised reading can be downloaded or printed.

You should not scan in-copyright materials yourself for course use in Moodle. It should be noted that any users found to breach the terms of the licence will be subject to the University's disciplinary procedures.  Those concerning the use of IT & data protection for students are outlined in the University Regulations.