UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Libraries will begin offering Penn State students, faculty and staff at the University Park campus the ability to pick up select materials available for checkout beginning Aug. 3 outside its Paterno Library entrance on Curtin Road. Nonaffiliated Pennsylvania residents and alumni who hold borrowing cards also may check out materials through this service.
In addition, on-campus office delivery service for University Park faculty, staff and graduate students may resume on Aug. 3, pending availability of interoffice mail services on a per-building basis. InterLibrary Loan service will be available but limited until peer library institutions resume similar operations.
University Libraries facilities University-wide remain closed to the public at this time. Timelines for reopening and hours of availability will be announced at a later date and will vary by campus location.
Access to a wide breadth and depth of remote resources through the University Libraries will remain in place. Nearly half of the University Libraries’ materials on its shelves will continue to be available digitally only through the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS), which began in Spring 2020. Once logged in at www.hathitrust.org, Penn State users can access the entire public domain corpus and temporarily have limited access to in-copyright and copyright-undetermined volumes held by the Libraries. Those titles available through the HathiTrust ETAS will not be available for physical checkout because of copyright limitations. Requests for scans from those titles may be made through InterLibrary Loan.
Physical titles in the University Libraries’ catalog not available through the HathiTrust ETAS service will appear with a visible “I Want It” user option beginning Aug. 3. From there, users who wish to check out titles should select the “I Want It” button and add it to their user account. A website offers detailed instructions for requesting items for checkout.
Once users have submitted requests, users will be notified by email when materials have been collected and will be provided a link to schedule a weekday pickup date. After a pickup date has been scheduled, materials will be available curbside from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays outside the Paterno Library entrance on a walk-up basis. Users planning to pick up requested materials must wear a mask and display their Penn State ID or borrowing card to staff for verification of identity.
Peer research consultations for students via Zoom are available for limited hours of service weekdays. Details are listed on the Search Bar Services web page. Assistance through the Ask a Librarian service, available via web chat, text message, email, phone and by appointment and through curated FAQ topics, remains available. Details are listed at libraries.psu.edu/ask.
Instructors and students are reminded that the Libraries will be providing course materials on reserve primarily online, and as available, during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the availability of physical textbooks placed on reserve will be very limited. Instructors are encouraged to use digital alternatives. Additional information about access to the Libraries’ textbooks and videos is available on the University’s Copyright website. Faculty with questions about access to digital materials for courses through Canvas are encouraged to contact their subject liaison librarian.