Student Guide to Ares

Page Contents:

1. Create an Ares Account
2. Search and Add Courses to My Courses List
3. View and Access Materials in Course Reserves
4. Remove a Course on My Courses List
5. Turn on Notifications When New Materials are Added to My Courses
6. How to Use a Hot List

IMPORTANT: Ares Information for Students

Students attempting to access electronic materials from any non-UF network need to be logged onto the UF VPN client before accessing these materials. A guide to downloading, installing and using the VPN client for both Mac and Windows users can be viewed at the link below. If you have technical issues with this, contact the UF Computing Help Desk at 352-392-4357; if you need assistance with specific library resources or course reserve items, contact us at 352-273-2520 or via email at eres@uflib.ufl.edu.

Distance learners can find helpful information at this link: https://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/distancelearners

Create an Ares Account

1. Go to https://ares.uflib.ufl.edu/ares

2. Log in using your Gatorlink account information.

3. Click on the link for Students.

4. On the next screen, fill in your information as follows:

• First name
• Last name
• Gatorlink ID- use only the ID (do not include @ufl.edu)
• UFL Email: Account requests using any other email will be denied.
• Telephone number including area code
• Campus address (PO Box) or off campus residence
• Department of study

5. Clicking ‘Submit’ will create your Ares account.

Search and Add Courses to My Courses List

Note: If your Instructor has enabled Course Reserves in Canvas, select that option on your Canvas dashboard.
If not, please use Ares.

1. Log into Ares.

2. On the left-side of the screen under Student Tools, click on Search Courses.

3. There are three options to search for courses (use one of the three options):

a. By department

b. By instructor (use the drop down menu to locate instructors by name)

c. By course number (for example, ENC 1101). TIP: If you cannot locate the course by prefix and number, try entering just the prefix.

4. Click on “+ Add Course” to add it to your My Courses list. Current courses are NOT automatically added to the My Courses List. Students must add each course to this list manually unless Canvas is the access for Course Reserves.

5. You have now added your course and will be directed to the Main Menu. The course you have added will appear in the list of My Courses.

View and Access Materials in Course Reserves

IMPORTANT: You must have the UF VPN Client installed on your computer, and be logged into the UF VPN Client before viewing online course reserve materials. Information on installing and using the UF VPN Client. For technical assistance with the UF VPN Client, please call the UF Computing Help Desk, at 352-392-4357.

1. From the Main Menu in Ares, click on the My Courses list and choose a course to open. (If there are no courses listed, refer back to question: How do I search for my courses in Ares, and add courses to the My Courses List?). Click on a course to display a listing of all the materials that the instructor has available this semester.

2. On this page you should see the list of reserves items. Click on the item you would like to view. An electronic item or pdf will be opened with “View Item.”  Hard copy items such as books or DVDs on the shelf will be opened with “Show Details.” The result of Show Details will provide information to find the item at a specific library branch.

Examples of the types of items on Course Reserves:

Example 1

A companion to modern African art (circled in red) lists a call number (N7391.65 .S25 2013). If an item has a call number listed, this indicates that the item is a hard copy reserves item, and is not available in full-text online. If you click on this listing, you will see the following screen:

The “Click here for catalog record” link will display the library where the item is on reserve, the call number, and whether the item is currently checked out (see below). These items are located at the circulation desk of the library specified. For example, this item is on Reserve at UF Architecture/Fine Arts (AFA) Library.

Example 2

The web file icon indicates that Art South Africa (circled in blue) is an online resource with a link to the article in a database, website, or other online source. Clicking on the item will bring up the item record with a link to the item. Click on “View this item.”

Example 3

The PDF icon next to A Companion to Modern Art in Africa (circled in purple) indicates that it is a scanned PDF file (see image below). Clicking on “View this Item” will take you to the item record. Please note that you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader or another PDF file viewer installed to view the PDF. 

Remove a Course from My Courses List

The courses in your My Courses list will be automatically deleted at the end of each semester. If you want to remove a course before the end of the semester, take the following steps.

1. Click on the class in your My Courses list.

2. Click Remove course under the Student Course Tools menu (see image below). 

3. On the next page, confirm that you want to remove the course by clicking Yes. 

Turn on Notifications When New Materials are Added to My Courses

For each class in your My Courses list, you can be notified by email when new items are added to the course reserves list. Emails are automatically sent to your ufl.edu email address. To activate this feature, take the following steps:

1. Click on the course in your My Courses list.

2. Click on the Subscribe Now link where it states “An Email subscription will send you emails when new items become available in this course. You are not currently subscribed. Subscribe Now.” (see image below)

You will now receive an email whenever an item is added to the course reserve list.

How to Use a Hot List

The Hot List allows grouping of items for quick access or that may be needed for more than one class. My Hot List feature is under Student Tools on the left side Main Menu.

To add items to your Hot List:

1. Click on a course in your My Courses list.

2.  Place a check mark in the box next to the items that you want to add to your Hot List.

 3. At the bottom of the page, click on the Add Checked items to Hot List button.

These items will now appear first on your main Ares page when you log in, for quick access. To remove items, place a check mark next to the item on your Hot List, and click on the Remove checked items from Hot List button.