Q. What are the CONTU guidelines I keep hearing some librarians reference?

CONTU attempted to give guidance on how to use copyrighted works within copyright law. The Wikipedia article on CONTU outlines some basic history, and the Commission's recommended guidelines had implications for interlibrary loan practices, should libraries choose to follow them. 

The TCC Library currently follows CONTU guidelines, which means we will only process up to 5 total requests (ie copies of a section from a work, such as a chapter or article) for our entire college from any one (1) title published in the last 5 years. Older material will not be added to our accumulative 5 for that year. Please note that you cannot typically request a whole book to be copied due to copyright. 

For more context on CONTU, see the links below within box, framed from the TCC Library Copyright Guide: