Support for Academic Staff

Digitised readings are scanned copies of book extracts or journal articles which are not otherwise available online from the University Library. 

The University of Lincoln holds a Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Comprehensive Higher Education Licence. This Licence allows the University to create digitised material by scanning from printed books and journals in the library's collection. 

If the Library does not have a copy of the publication, there may be the option to:

• purchase a copy
• obtain a copyright fee paid copy from the British Library.  There is a charge for this service and it will be taken from the relevant book fund.

Digitised readings are made available to students via the module's online reading list which can be accessed from the module site on Blackboard or the library website.

Under the terms of the CLA Higher Education Licence it is possible to digitise:

• an extract of no more than 10% of a book or one chapter (whichever is the greater) subject to copyright licence terms.  For example, if a book is 400 pages long, you could have one chapter of any length or 40 pages in total (which may be more than one chapter). 
• up to 10% or one article from a single issue of a journal (whichever is greater).
• one short story or one poem or one play of not more than 10 pages in an anthology of short stories, poems or plays.

There are restrictions from some publishers (US and other other countries). You can check whether a book can be scanned using the CLA Check Permissions site. It is not possible to provide a digitised reading where there is an accessible digital equivalent (e.g. an ebook) already available from the Library.

If the Library is unable to scan the item, you will be contacted to discuss further options.

If you are in any doubt about what may or may not be digitised, please contact your Academic Subject Librarian.

Resources that are digitised must be reported to the Copyright Licencing Agency.  Reporting takes place automatically through the online reading lists (Talis).  

To request a digitised reading you can email your Academic Subject Librarian with the details or make the request yourself through the relevant reading list.

Email your Academic Subject Librarian with the following information:

1. Full details of the publication


2. Details of the extract required including page numbers


3. The module name and code that you would like the digitised reading attached to


4. The number of students studying on the module


5. The date required (please allow at least two weeks for requests to be fulfilled)

Your Academic Subject Librarian will contact you if there is an issue with the request.  We will confirm by email when the digitised reading is ready.

You will need to be logged in to Talis Aspire and have rights to edit a reading list to request digitisations.

1. Add required item to the relevant module reading list.  The book must be bookmarked from the Library website (if it isn’t currently in the Library, contact your Academic Subject Librarian). Please refer to the ‘Reading list guide for Academic Staff’ for guidance.


2. Select Edit mode and click on ‘Edit list’.


3. Click on the ‘Request Digitisation’ option for the required item.


4. Complete the online form including the ‘Needed by’ date.  Please allow at least two weeks for requests to be fulfilled.


5. You will receive an online notification about the status of the request. Your Academic Subject Librarian will contact you if there is an issue with the request.


6. You will received an email to confirm when the digitised reading is available.

If you require any assistance with this process please contact your Academic Subject Librarian.