Course packs

(notes for course convenors)

Course packs are organised collections of photocopies of readings for a particular course. They are one way of providing access to heavily used readings. The University's licence with the Copyright Licensing Agency allows multiple copying for course packs still in copyright, where the University Library holds a copy of the material required. If the Library does not own a copy of the original publication a copyright fee-paid copy has to be obtained from the British Library (BLDSC) or another licensed document supplier. If the author/creator of the material has been dead for more than 70 years copyright does not apply.

When you produce a course pack, you will need to:

  • ensure that the conditions of the CLA licence are complied with. For more information see the CLA User Guidelines (PDF)
  • source and assemble the contents of the course pack for copying i.e. get the books/journals from the Library shelves.
  • arrange the copying. Some departments have the first copy made by the Library's Photocopying Service so that it is in a suitable format for a pack. These copies may be charged to a departmental fund code. The Library will apply for copyright cleared photocopies as requested (see 2 below). Books which are on loan can be requested on the Library Catalogue.
  • include full bibliographic information for each item: author, title (of chapter or article, and journal or book), page references, publisher, date of publication and ISBN or ISSN if applicable.
  • distribute the course packs to the students.

Please note the following conditions which must apply:

  1. All photocopies included in the course pack must comply with the limits on the length of extracts set out in the licence.
    • up to 5% or one whole chapter (whichever is the greater) from a book
    • one article from a single issue of a journal
    • up to 5% or one paper (whichever is the greater) from a set of conference proceedings
    • up to 5% of an anthology of short stories or poems or one short story or one poem of not more than 10 pages (whichever is the greater)
    • Copies of articles from UK national newspapers may be included under the terms of the University's Newspaper Licensing Agency licence - up to a maximum of 250 copies per article
  2. If the University does not own an original from which to copy, any copying must be undertaken from a photocopy for which a copyright fee has been paid. The Library will attempt to obtain such a copyright fee paid copy on request. Please complete an inter-library loan form, mark it "copyright fee" and send it to Interlending and Document Supply. The cost of the copyright fee will be passed on to the requesting department. Copyright fees vary depending on the copyright owner but can be from £5 to £60.
  3. Not all types of publication (e.g. music and maps) and not all publishers are covered by the CLA licence. Further information is available from the CLA website:
  4. If an item is not covered by the CLA licence or the extent of copying required exceeds the limits allowed by the CLA licence (i.e. more than the length of extracts specified in 1. above), you will need to seek permission from the copyright owner to include it in a course pack. Obtaining such permission can be very time consuming and should be undertaken well in advance of the course pack being required.
  5. You CANNOT put in course packs material you have requested on ILL for your personal research, or material from journals you subscribe to personally or are given, or books bought for personal use, unless you have specific permission from the copyright holder.

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Production of course packs

  1. Multiple copies can be made up to a maximum of one copy for each student on the course plus one copy for the lecturer.
  2. Multiple copies of course packs can be produced by the Print Unit at a very reasonable price, which includes soft binding. Please allow plenty of time as the Print Unit is very busy, particularly in September and October.
  3. Under the terms of the CLA licence, students may be charged a fee for a course pack, but only to cover the administrative costs of producing the course pack.

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Electronic works

The CLA licence, which allows multiple photocopying for course packs, does not apply to electronic works.

You should generally assume that it is not permissible to make copies of electronic documents, either in printed or electronic form, even for personal use, unless:

  • Copying is allowed under the terms of a licence
  • The copyright holder has given explicit permission (which may be stated on the website)

There are rules governing the excessive downloading of records from an online database. The downloading Policy is available on the CHEST website

For further information about copying see Copyright guidance notes

For further queries about licences contact the Academic Support Office

NB. Please be aware that the notes above are intended only to provide guidance on copyright matters relating to course packs, and they cannot be relied upon as a comprehensive or official statement of the law, or of the legal obligations of individuals with respect to copyright.

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Using electronic journal articles in course packs

The licence terms and conditions of some of the Library's electronic resources prohibit the printing of articles to use in course packs. The main resources which prohibit course pack use are:

  • JSTOR
  • Periodicals Archive Online
  • Taylor and Francis electronic journals (also includes the imprints Routledge, Carfax, Psychology Press)

If you want to include an article from one of these resources in a course pack, you have the following options.

Option One

Provide a stable SFX URL to the article instead of a print copy. This is the option recommended by the Library. Advice on constructing stable SFX URLs is available at the Library's ejournals web page (NB: simply copying and pasting a URL from the address line of a web browser is not advised). Please contact lib-journals@york.ac.uk if you require any help constructing a stable SFX URL.

Option Two

Request the Library provides you with a copyright-cleared photocopy obtained from the British Library, to be sent to your department who would then be responsible for arranging the course pack copying. Please contact infodir-ilds@york.ac.uk if you wish to request a copyright-cleared photocopy, explaining why Option One is not appropriate, and giving the full article citation.

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Unencrypted PDF Service for Higher Education Trial License holders

Holders of a Higher Education Trial Licence with the Copyright Licensing Agency are now able to order unencrypted electronic documents from the British Library in PDFR format, for inclusion in electronic course packs.

This new service, which requires a copyright fee to be paid on all orders, is currently available through our ARTEmail and ARTTel ordering channels. For further information, including how to register for the service, please contact our Customer Services department at customer-services@bl.uk or +44 (0)1937 546060.