How do I add Textbooks into my Course in CourseWorks (Canvas)?

You can add textbooks by using the Textbooks tool. It should automatically appear on the left in the Course Navigation once you enter your course page.


The screen that appears, will give you the opportunity to Add or Import Textbooks, or to state that there are no textbooks for the course. You will need the ISBNs for your textbooks and/or the author, date, publisher, and year published for each of your books.

Adding a single textbook

1. To add a single textbook, first, click on "Add Textbooks" on the top bar.

2.  Enter the ISBN and click "Get Book Info". If the item is found, information about the book will appear below. You can then select "Add as Required" or "Add as Recommended" as you wish. The book will then be added to your textbook list.


If the ISBN search does not come up with any information, try ISBN-10 if you were previously using ISBN-13, or vice versa. (ISBN-10 seems to work better most of the time.)

The ISBN search may also come up with items, but not with the publisher or year. Since the system requires all fields to be filled, you may then see an error message. In this instance, you should click on the "Click here" link next to "No ISBN/Unable to locate by ISBN?"

You will then be allowed to manually enter information about your textbook. All fields are required.

Importing textbooks from another course

You can also import textbooks from another course that you own.

1.  To do this, click "Import Textbooks" on the top bar.

2. You will be presented with a list of your courses. Select the ones for which you wish to import the textbooks and then click "Import" to add them.

Importing textbooks from a file

If you have many textbooks, it may be easiest to keep the information in one file and then importing them all at once. Once on the "Import Textbooks" page, you will see the option to "switch to file" next to the title. Download the Excel file, remove the example rows, and fill out the information for your textbooks on your computer. You then can save the file and upload it back to Courseworks2 (Canvas) on the same page.