Digitisation service (staff)
The Birkbeck Library digitisation service scans printed material and provides links to digital material for use by teaching staff in Moodle modules, in order to ensure Birkbeck complies with copyright law.
Copyright restrictions
Printed material: you should not upload material you have scanned yourself to your Moodle module unless you have permission from the rights holder. The Library can scan this material for you, which ensures we are legally compliant.
We are only allowed to scan:
- one chapter or no more than 10% of a book (whichever is the greater)
- one article from a journal issue or no more than 10% (whichever is the greater).
If you request more than this, we will only provide the first chapter/article on your list.
Digital material: you should not upload PDF of ejournals or ebooks to your Moodle module, as this breaches the licences we hold. Instead, you should create stable links to ejournal articles - see below for information on how to do this.
Find out more about what you are legally allowed to copy.
Browse our Digitisation Service
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Request a digitised reading
- New readings: Please read all the bullet points below before accessing the request form for the first time.
- Instructions for using the Request form are available here.
- You will need to click on “New Users” to register before you make your first requests.
- To request scanned readings and links to digital material (ejournals and ebooks) for your module’s key readings, please use the CLA’s Academic Request Form.
- If you are a new member of staff, or the New User registration doesn’t work, please send your name and email address to the Digitisation team. If you also send the module codes you are requesting material for, we will add these in advance.
- If you have any questions about the form, contact the Digitisation team.
- We will email you links to embed in your Moodle module.
- You can embed the links on a Moodle page.
- Re-using previously digitised material: please contact the Digitisation Team directly - you don't have to make these requests via the Request form. Simply provide the original Moodle module course code and the new course code you intend to re-use them in.
- New readings: Please read all the bullet points below before accessing the request form for the first time.
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Deadlines
- You can submit requests at any time, but we can only guarantee readings by the start of term if requests have been submitted by the following dates:
- Autumn term 2025: 8 August 2025
- Spring term 2026: 7 November 2025
- Summer term 2026: 6 March 2026
- You can submit requests at any time, but we can only guarantee readings by the start of term if requests have been submitted by the following dates:
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CREATING LINKS TO digital resources
- You can request links to digital resources via the web form. Alternatively, you can create these yourself, but they need to be stable, which means you can't simply copy a URL/hyperlink from your web browser.
- Find out how to create stable links to digital resources. This process takes a little more time, but it will significantly reduce the number of broken links on Moodle and related queries from students.
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accessibility for disabled and dyslexic students
- Moodle: materials digitised by the Library for Moodle are formatted as readable PDFs. Text can be copied and pasted, read aloud with text-to-speech software and annotations can be made. If it is not sufficiently accessible for a print impaired reader, the PDF may be further processed with Sensus Access.
- Contact us: email the Library's Disability and Dyslexia Support Team for help and support with providing accessible readings and textbooks.
- Find out more about producing accessible teaching materials for disabled and dyslexic students.