Faculty Frequently Asked Questions

• Kimberly Grotewold, Education Librarian, Liaison to: College of Education and Human Development and Psychology
• Rachel Pecotte, Business Librarian, Liaison to: College of Business, Computer Science, and Cybersecurity
• Leslie Stapleton, Head of Archives and Special Collections, Liaison to:History
• Bryant Moore, First-Year Experience Librarian, Liaison to: First Year Seminar
• Megan Gonzales,Arts & Sciences Librarian, Liaison to: Criminology, Political Science, Sociology, Communication, Geography, English, Spanish, Music, Art, and Philosophy
• Position Open, Arts & Sciences Librarian, Liaison to: Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Water Resources Science and Technology, Electronic Systems Engineering Technology, Mathematics, Physics, Community Health, and Public Health/Genomics.
• For assistance, please contact Deirdre McDonald (Head of Research Services).

Research Services (Instruction, faculty research, purchase requests/collection development, research guides and tutorials, OER, copyright, scholarly communications):

• Deirdre McDonald, Head of Research Services, For questions regarding Digital Commons, Copyright & Scholarly Communications

Archives & Special Collections (Archives instruction, tours, archival research, history collection development):

• Leslie Stapleton, Head of Archives and Special Collections

Public Services (Interlibrary Loan, TexShare, room reservations, course reserves, circulation questions, events):

• Sarah Timm, Head of Public Services

Digital Resources/Technical Services (Database access issues):

• Pru Morris, Head of Collections Services

Administration (Suggestions and questions about the library, its collections, its activities, and its services):

• Pru Morris, Interim Executive Director, Libraries & Special Collections

Check out our Databases A-Z list which includes all of our subscription databases.

We have a suggestion form that you can use, or just send your subject librarian an email with your request.

If the University Library owns the materials you wish to have put on reserve, please email your subject librarian or Sarah Timm with the following information: course title, course name, book or item title, book or item call number/ link to where you found it in the library catalog. We will add these materials to reserve for the semester and will email a confirmation when complete.

If you have a personal copy you would like to be added to reserve, please fill out the reserves form and bring it with your material to the library’s information desk. Library staff will add your item to reserve for the semester and will email a confirmation when complete.

If you are on-campus and using either the Internet Explorer or Firefox browser, you will be automatically recognized as a member of the A&M-SA community. If you are off-campus or using the Google Chrome browser while on-campus, you will need to configure the settings for Google Scholar so that it knows you are a member of the A&M-SA community. Please see How to Set Up Google Scholar for Off-Campus Use for instructions.

If you are off campus and not on the campus VPN, you will need to authenticate your access to sign in to library resources.

1. Make sure to use the links from the library’s webpages. Database links can be found on the Databases A-Z list. The library catalog can be found here.
2. Once you click on the link, you will be prompted to sign in:
   Username = Network ID
   Password = Network Password
3. You should now be able to access library resources off campus. Please note that if you close your browser, you may or may not need to sign back in depending on your browser settings.

To make library resources accessible off campus, you will need to configure links to articles, journals, films and other resources with the library's proxy address. There are two steps: finding the persistent URL and determining if it already has the proxy embedded in the link or if you will need to add it.

• Find a persistent URL. On the article or journal page, look for words such as "Persistent URL", "Stable URL", "InfoMark", "Document URL", or "Permalink."
• Is the link already proxied? If the persistent URL contains the proxy address below, students accessing it from off campus will automatically be directed to log in using their Network ID and Password. You can use the link "as is" and paste it directly into your course web page. If you don't see a proxy address, post the proxy address at the beginning of your persistent URL.


• Our proxy address is: Our proxy address: https://tamusa.idm.oclc.org/login?url=

We offer library instruction in a number of ways: in person, synchronous and asynchronous online instruction, online tutorials, handouts, course research guides, and ongoing support through Blackboard. Please contact your subject librarian for more information, or fill out our instruction request form.

Our library instruction is based on the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

Yes! We have many tutorials that are not course specific which cover topics like citations, avoiding plagiarism, different aspects of information literacy, and more. You can access all of these through our Instruction Self-Service page.

We also offer some certificates for the most popular self-service tutorials: Introduction to the Research Process, Avoiding Plagiarism, Basics of APA, and Basics of MLA. These can be accessed through our Academic Tools for the Research Process page. Talk to your library liaison about course and subject pre-made tutorials that may be available for your course.

We are very supportive of open access here at the library. We encourage all faculty to deposit their works in our open access repository: Digital Commons @ Texas A&M University-San Antonio. We will work with you to find a version of your work that can be shared openly. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Deirdre McDonald or fill out this form. We also have a few open access agreements with publishers that reduce or eliminate article processing fees for our faculty. View our current list of agreements.

Please see our OER guide for more information about affordable textbooks for students.

Don’t we all! Copyright can be both fairly simple and extremely complex at the same time. If you have a question about copyright, we encourage you to get in touch with your subject librarian or Deirdre McDonald. We will walk you through the process to determine what kinds of copyright restrictions are in place and how to be able to negotiate those in terms of your courses and research.

Yes and no. If you are showing a movie as part of your in person course, you can usually show the whole movie without worrying about copyright clearance. If you are using a film in your online course, the most common interpretation of copyright is that you can use the minimum necessary to support your learning objectives (for example, making a clip of a scene rather than showing the whole movie). If you need to screen a whole movie in an online course, you probably want to check with your subject librarian to see what kinds of restrictions the film is under.

If you are showing a film on campus as part of a club, movie series, or special event, you will need to have public performance rights. The library has a few streaming services that often include public performance rights, like Academic Video Online and Kanopy. Once you have identified a title you'd like to show, your subject librarian can check to see if our subscription includes public performance rights or if this is something that you would need to purchase.

A good rule of thumb is that you are most likely familiar with all the journals and conferences in your field that are valued by your scholarly community. If you are being approached via email from a publisher/ conference you are not familiar with, it is often a scam. If it sounds like a legitimate journal, though, and you would like us to check it out, just ask your subject librarian. You can read more about scholarly publishing, finding journals to publish with, and avoiding predatory journals.