E-reserves FAQ

Electronic reserve readings for courses taught at Mills College can be accessed from the Course Reserves area of Minerva, the Library Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). You may view these items from any computer either on- or off-campus. 

These are the current recommendations to successfully view e-reserves online. 

• You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and/or print the PDF e-reserves. You can download and install a Free Adobe Reader, if you do not have it installed on your personal computer.
• AOL users- DO NOT USE THE AOL INTERFACE TO ACCESS YOUR RESERVE READING.  Connect to the internet with AOL, and then use IE to access your reading. 
• Browsers-            

  • We recommend that your browser supports HTML and XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), ECMAScript (the standard behind scripting languages such as JavaScript), and the W3C Document Object Model (DOM). Any of the modern browsers that provides at least base level support for these standards and will improve your browsing experience in the Web OPAC.

• Ensure that cookies are enabled.

How to access the e-reserve readings
 
From the Library online catalog, select either Reserves by Course or Reserves by Faculty.

• Click on “Find Course Reserves," which will take you to a new search screen.
• Type the department name and course number you are searching for into the Course Name Search Box, e.g., Art History 31, or arth 031
• Click on the button marked “Submit Search.”
• Once you have the list of reserve readings for your class you may click on the title of any reading that has a Format of  *ELECTRONIC COPY AVAILABLE*

Reserves by Faculty

• Click on “Find Course Reserves," which will take you to a new search screen.
• Type the instructor’s name that you are searching for into the Instructor Search Box, e.g., Jarvis, Carol.
• Click on the button marked “Submit Search.”
• Once you have clicked on the title you will need to enter the Course Password. The faculty member teaching the course will give you a password to use to access electronic reserves. This password will be unique for each course, and will not work to access electronic reserves in other courses.
• If you forget the password for your course you can contact the Reference Desk by calling 510-430-2385.
• After you have successfully entered the course password, your e-reserve document will open in a PDF format using Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer you may download it for free from the Adobe Web site at http://www.adobe.com/.

Accessing e-reserves from home

• You may experience difficulty opening an e-reserve document if you are using a modem instead of a dedicated line (DSL). Typically, opening a PDF document using a modem can take between 5 and 15 minutes, or longer.
• One solution is to access the e-reserves from a computer that is connected to the campus network, such as those in the Library, the Computing Lab in Stern 10, the Parsons Computer Classroom in Stern 35, or the Computing Lab in CPM 207. For a list of the computing lab hours and other useful information, please see the Mills Technology Web page.
• Also, you may check the Minerva catalog to see if the printed version of the article you need is available as a 2-hour reserve at the Circulation Desk of the Library.

Reporting a problem accessing e-reserve readings

• Problems accessing e-reserves can be reported to the reference librarian by calling 510-430-2385.
• Problems or questions concerning Blackboard course web pages should be directed to blackboard@mills.edu.