Digitised content
The library has the ability to digitise book chapters and journal articles for academic/teaching staff for use on high demand items associated with core readings on reading lists.
The repeated copying/printing of these documents is permitted under the Copyright Licencing Agency (CLA) Higher Education Licence, which the University of Bradford has signed up to. Under this licence all digitised material must be reported to the CLA on an annual basis, this is done by the library.
How can the digitised content be accessed?
PDF copies of digitised content are obtained and uploaded to the respective reading lists.
What can be digitised?
There are restrictions on what is allowed under the licence. The CLA have arrangements with publishers to allow copying of their material. Items which are from publications not covered by the licence cannot be provided. There are also restrictions to how much of an item can be reproduced, as given below.
- Up to 10% or one chapter of a book, whichever is greater.
- Up to 10% or two articles from a journal issue, whichever is greater.
- Up to 10% or two papers of one set of conference proceedings, whichever is greater.
- Up to 10% or one case of one report of judicial proceedings
- Up to 10% of an anthology of short stories or poems or one short story or poem of not more than 10 pages.
The University needs to own an original copy of the material requested, if the book/journal etc. is not owned by the University, a copyright cleared copy may potentially be obtained from the British Library so that the item can be added to the digitised content.
If we cannot obtain a copyright cleared copy, or you need material which falls outside the licence for including in the collection, then a 'no further copying' copy could be added. To allow further copying of this type of material special permission would have to be sought from the copyright owner. For further information on copyright in general please see our copyright and licensing page.
Accessibility of digitised content
If you find any content, where the PDF uploaded needs to be an accessible document, it is advisable to use SensusAccess to convert the file yourself. If you still need further assistance, please contact the library team.
How do I submit a request for a file?
Members of academic/teaching staff can request material to be digitised by clicking on the ‘Request digitisation’ button associated with an item on any reading list. Unfortunately, we are unable to digitise content for students.
We recommend that if you want an item digitised you submit the request as early as possible. On average processing time varies between 1-5 weeks, depending on availability of the source material.
Please refer to the guide to submitting requests or the instructional videos below to accurately submit a request. If you still need additional assistance in submitting a request, please contact the library team.
Submitting requests for digitisation of book chapters (video)
Submitting requests for digitisation of journal articles (video)
Guide to submitting requests
If you require this information in an alternative format, please contact our team. You can also read our Website Accessibility Statement.
Repeated use of digitised content
Digital files are added for the academic year of the module only; these are reviewed and reported annually. Academic staff will receive an email once a year asking whether the content should be retained for the next academic year. We can re-use files without further copying/digitising, as long as content is still covered by the CLA licence. This will be checked as part of the review process.
Further information
Please send any requests for amendments or removal of content and/or further information to the library team via email.