Founded in 1887 as the Croatan Normal School, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP) is a smaller branch of the UNC System (with an full-time enrollment of about 6,500), yet with awarded diversity and a historical dedication to individualized service. Its dedication to services drives its approach to course reserves, which is to encourage its usage as much as possible as a way to save faculty member time and ease student access to needed materials. In working to accomplish this goal, it has sought a course reserves system that facilitates services, as well as takes into account its individual staffing needs at the library. This article provides a comparison of the pros and cons of three different reserves systems--Innovative's Millennium software, Docutek's ERes, and Atlas Systems Ares--as implemented at the UNCP.