I once had a professor spend what was, in retrospect, an inordinate amount of time explaining to me his belief that the American education system is rigged to trigger depression in individuals within a year of them severing ties with it. Obviously, there are myriad reasons why one might experience a twinge of sadness over leaving a place and way of life with which one is greatly familiar. But his theory had nothing to do with a lost sense of purpose or a lingering fondness for familiar faces, rather, he attributed such sadness to the coming of autumn. The academic year is structured such that a new academic beginning coincides with a time when everything in nature points to an end.
While the morns don’t seem to be meeker at the moment, the leaves aren’t currently ripening to the fall and barred clouds don’t yet bloom the soft-dying day, summer is, sadly, coming to an end and both the fall and the fall semester are fast approaching. If you’re teaching an upcoming course then Reserves Services is here to help! Though our submission deadline for optimal service has passed, reserves staff are still ready and eager to make readings available electronically and place books and videos on reserve.
Simply visit our website and choose an option to submit your reserve reading/AV requests. You may email your syllabus, or, if you have ten or fewer requests, you may prefer to submit them electronically through our interactive PDF forms. Who has no house will not build one now, but Reserves staff are currently building their skills and workflow around a new e-reserve management system (Ares). For more on Ares, check out our informational page on our website. For general questions about course reserves, please see our FAQ or contact us directly at reserves@jhu.edu. We also welcome in-person visits and inquiries at our offices. Or, feel free to stop any Reserves staff member as they wander up and down the streets restlessly, driven like leaves.