Student Resources

Textbook Reserve Collection

The Library maintains a limited collection of textbooks currently in use by RVCC courses. We purchase textbooks for this reserve collection if the textbook costs more than $35 and at least 25 students are enrolled in the course. Faculty may place a personal copy of a textbook on reserve with the Library or work with their liaison librarian if their textbook does not meet our purchasing criteria. 

Textbook check outs

Students may check out a reserve textbook with their RVCC ID card for use in the library only. Check outs are for two hours and may be renewed if another student is not waiting to use the textbook. A book scanner and copier is available for students to scan or photocopy textbook pages.

How do I know if the library has the textbook for my course?

There are two ways to find out if the library has your course textbook. In the Books, eBooks, & Media Catalog, if you search for the book by title, author, or keyword, you can see in the results list that the book is in the Reserves location.

You can also use the Textbooks search on the Library homepage. You cannot search by title here; you must type in the course name or course code, or browse all courses alphabetically.

Textbook Purchasing Policy

1.    The book must have a cost of $35 or more

2.    The book must be a required textbook for a course with twenty-five or more students

3.    Students may be split across multiple sections

4.    Requests made after the start of the semester may be delayed due to processing and availability

**Should a faculty member request the library purchase a textbook that does not meet the above criteria, the liaison librarian may work with the faculty member and department chair to get approval to purchase the textbook from the department’s library materials fund line. These texts will not be purchased from the bookstore and thus may not be immediately available at the start of a semester.