Frequently Asked Questions

Washington University students, faculty, staff, and courtesy borrowers who have current identification cards may borrow books. A current Washington University I.D. or courtesy card is required for all borrowing transactions. Circulation policies vary depending on the type and location of materials. For an overview of procedures in each library, see the Olin Library Circulation Unit or the Circulation section of each Departmental and School Library page.

You are welcome to come to any campus library and use most of the resources while you are here. Use of the Arc Technology Center is restricted to current faculty, students, and staff; there are also a few commercial databases which you will not be allowed to use, due to licensing restrictions. For information on checking out books, please see the question below.

Not directly. You may join the Century Club, for $100 (or more) for one year. One of the privileges of this membership is the right to check out books from the WU Libraries. It does not, however, give you access to most databases and electronic journals in the Libraries website from off-campus. You are welcome to use most of the restricted resources while you are in any of the Libraries on the WU campuses. To find out more about joining the Century Club, please see Washington University Giving Clubs.

If you are a student at St. Louis University or University of Missouri-St. Louis, or another member of the MOBIUS consortium, you can check out books using your university ID. However, we recommend you request the item via the MOBIUS catalog and have it delivered to your 'home' library rather than coming to the WU Libraries in person to check out books.

If you are a student at a college or university in the St. Louis area, you may be able check out books from the Washington University Libraries with an InfoPass from your school's library, if it participates in the InfoPass program. Ask at your school library for a pass.

If you are a faculty member at another college or university, you may request an HEC card from your institution's library, which allows checkout privileges at many local colleges and universities.

Unfortunately, books and other library materials occasionally go missing or turn up in the wrong place. This can happen for a number of reasons, not all of them preventable. When an item is missing, you can report it with one quick step.

Request it: If the item you want is not checked out, but you can't find it in the stacks, request a search for the item by clicking the "Request" button in the online catalog record.

This will notify the Circulation staff, who will conduct a search for the item within 24 hours. If the book or item is not found, but it is available through the MOBIUS catalog, the Circulation staff will request a copy for you through MOBIUS and notify you when it arrives.

If the item you want is listed as MISSING, LOST, or SEARCHING in the catalog, you may also order it yourself through MOBIUS or Interlibrary Loan.

Of course, you can also ask someone at the Help Desk in Olin Library (Level 1) for help in locating the item. For other libraries on campus, ask at the main checkout desk for assistance and someone will help you.

For an explanation of all status messages in the library catalog, see this list.

If you still have the item in your possession, return it! You will be charged a fine if you don't. Here is Olin Library's policy for overdues. If the item is overdue at another campus library, check with the circulation desk at that library. Overdue materials cannot be renewed online.

This differs somewhat from library to library; ask at the circulation desk of whichever library the items are checked out from. For Olin Library, books that are not yet overdue, have not been requested by another borrower, or reached the renewal limit may be renewed using the My Catalog function of the catalog. You may also renew by regular mail or by bringing materials to the Check-out Desk, Level 1. Telephone renewals are not accepted. If the books have reached their renewal limit, they must be brought to the Check-out Desk to be checked in.

See answer just above!

For electronic/online reserves, use ERes. For books and other materials in print, use the Course Reserves by Course Name or Course Reserves by Instructor functions in the Library Catalog. You might also want to take a look at the homepage for Reserve unit in Olin Library.

Yes, you may. To request the delivery of item(s) found in the Library Catalog from one Danforth campus library to another, you must first search the catalog and find the record for the desired item. Then click on the 'Request' button at the top or bottom of the screen. On the next screen, fill in your name, your WU ID number, and PIN. (If you do not have a PIN, go to My Catalog to choose one.) After you've chosen a library pickup location, click on the button that says 'Submit Above Information.' The item will be delivered from the library that has that item to the library you wish to pick it up from, in usually about one day. Go to the circulation desk of that library to pick it up.

Choose the How do I ... link in the left-hand column of any page in the website.

The Library Catalog contains location and holdings information for materials housed in Olin Library and all other WU libraries except the Medical Library, and for cataloged materials housed in the West Campus Library in Clayton. The Catalog also contains records for some electronic resources available on the Internet. More info.

Two versions of the catalog are available:

• Web version: if you connect to the Library Catalog from a graphical browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox or Safari, you are connected to the web version of the catalog. From this version, you can click on the URLs for Internet resources and be connected directly to them.
• Text version: you can connect to the Library Catalog in text-only mode, via a secure shell (SSH) connection. You cannot access the Internet resources directly from this version. But there are one or two search features in the text version that are not available from the web version. Please ask at a reference desk if you are curious about this. To log in, type library at the login: prompt. To disconnect, while viewing the main menu press the letter D.

Take a look at the What's in the Library Catalog page, and scroll down to the How to Use section. If you have specific questions, or more immediate ones, please stop by the Help Desk in Olin Library, Level 1, or contact your Subject Librarian.

The main menu of the web version of the Library Catalog has a link to the Medical Library catalog, as well as to the Law Library catalog. Additional library catalogs are available from the link at the bottom of the main menu of the Library Catalog, or by choosing the link to Additional Library Catalogs on the Libraries homepage, under Find Books & More. You will be given options and instructions for making direct connections to a number of local and Missouri library catalogs, WorldCat (OCLC), and the catalogs of the Center for Research Libraries (Chicago) and the Library of Congress. Links are also provided to a number of lists of college, university, and commercial libraries whose catalogs are accessible on the Internet. In many cases, these lists contain links to the catalogs themselves.

In addition to the call number, you need to note the location indicated on the catalog record for the item: after all, it does no good to look in Olin Library for a book that's in Art & Architecture! So the first step is to go to the correct library. For Olin Library, we have an online Collections Location Guide which shows the locations of the call numbers. In other campus libraries, ask at the circulation or reference desks for assistance. You may also request to have a book delivered from one campus library to another for you to pick up; you do this by clicking the 'Request' button when viewing the record for the book you want in the Library Catalog and indicating to which library you want the book delivered.

There are a number of messages that appear in the online catalog, when viewing the record for an item, that indicate whether it is on the shelf, or checked out, etc. Here's a complete list of the status messages and what they mean.

After searching the catalog, on a results list you can click the box in front of any record to save that record, or when viewing a full record, click the Save Records button. A View Saved button then appears; click on it to view a brief listing of all your saved records.

You can choose to email, view on screen, or save to disk your saved records in various formats. If you have any of these software programs, you can export records directly to Pro-Cite, EndNote, or RefWorks. The Full Display of records outputs all bibliographic information and the location, call number, and status of the item. The Brief Display outputs only the author, title, publisher info, and edition - no call number, location, or status information.

Since the Brief Display doesn't include call number, location, and status, please choose Full Display when printing records from the catalog. Since the Full Display of records can be quite long (many records now include tables of contents, for example), you might want to follow this procedure:

1. Save your records as described above.
2. On the 'View Saved' records screen, choose Full Display and Local Disk.
3. When you click Submit, a window will open asking if you want to choose Notepad to open the file. Click OK.
4. Edit the export.txt file in Notepad to remove whatever portions of the records that you don't want - subjects, notes, tables of contents, whatever. You might want to insert a blank line between records to make the output easier to read.
5. Choose File/Print and choose a printer. From that point, it's the regular printing process (when using computers in the Libraries).

Please note that the catalog is set to time out, back to the main search screen, after 30 minutes if catalog inactivity. The 'view saved' list of records (discussed above) is also cleared after 30 minutes of catalog inactivity.

The Catalog is available remotely via:

• World Wide Web: http://catalog.wustl.edu
• Secure shell (SSH): connect to catalog.wustl.edu, and log in using library as the username; no password is necessary. To disconnect, while viewing the main menu press the letter D.
• Direct Dial: (314) 512-0027

See the Library Hours page, or use the Library Hours & Maps link in the left-hand column of any page in the website. This lists the hours (and telephone numbers) of all Washington University Libraries. In the listing for Olin library there is a link to the hours of Olin Library such as the Help Desk and Circulation. This information is changed as necessary from the academic year hours to summer hours.

Drinks may be brought into Olin Library provided they are in covered containers. For reasons of building maintenance, sanitation, and the protection of library materials, no food is allowed in Olin Library, except in Whispers Café. This rule applies to all areas of Olin Library, including classrooms. Please check with other campus libraries for their rules on food and drink.

Of course! Almost all the public workstations in Olin Library and all the other libraries on campus have access to the Internet. There are a few workstations that are restricted to accessing the Library Catalog only, and are labeled as such. Almost all other public workstations have Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Adobe Acrobat. See the Computer Services page for more information, or ask at a reference desk.

You can check your email on almost every public workstation in any of the Libraries, except those that are restricted to the Library Catalog only.

If your email account is on a WU machine, you can access it through the WU home page. Links to the WU home page appear on the header of every page in the Libraries website, at the far right end. Here's the direct link: Check E-mail. A registered username and password are required to connect to your email.

Almost the public computers in the Libraries now have the full Microsoft Office suite, including Word. There are some computers which can only be used to access the Library Catalog, and are labeled as such. The Arc: Library Technology Center has many computers with word processing, and many more specialized applications.

The Libraries have subscribed to RefWorks for the WU community. The RefWorks login page has a number of links to info about using it: a quick start guide, tutorials, etc. You can always contact your subject librarian for assistance.

We provide some information on using EndNote on this website; check out these webpages: EndNote Information. Note that Library staff are not experts in using this program! But we're happy to try to help, if you have questions.

It is a library-created system unique to Washington University in St. Louis, which coordinates and integrates selected information resources useful for teaching and research. It includes:

• links to the Library Catalog, which includes the Law Library
• links to the catalog of the Medical Library
• the catalogs of many other U.S. and foreign libraries
• databases to which the Libraries subscribe for the WU community, including indexes to journal articles, plus some free databases
• lists of subject-specific resources chosen by WU Libraries staff
• many full-text resources, such as Britannica Online, JSTOR, and Project Muse
• many general interest Internet resources
• information on the hours, policies, collections and services of the WU campus libraries.

The Libraries' website contains a wide variety of electronic resources, but it isn't comprehensive, nor does it provide automatic access to every resource on the Internet. The resources that are in the website have been placed there by WU Libraries staff to assist with the research and educational endeavors of the WU community. Many of the resources are also available to the general public.

This website was created by the Libraries at Washington University to organize Internet resources for the WU community. The World Wide Web is that portion of the Internet which is available via web browsers such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, and includes MANY more resources than what the Library staff have placed in this website.

To use online journal indexes and similar resources to which the Libraries have subscribed for WU students, faculty, and staff, look in the website. Choose either Research Guides or Find it! Articles, Databases, Full-Text.

To find more resources on the Internet, use a World Wide Web search engine, such as Google or Yahoo. You can find these search engines by using the Other Search Options page.

Still confused? Please ask at the Help Desk in Olin Library for further information, or contact your Subject Librarian.

Use the Search box in the header of any page within the website to search for resources in the Libraries website. Use the Other Search Options page for more options, such as Google.

Or, you might want to try the Site Index, linked in the header area of every page on the website.

Yes. Use the Other Search Options page. Direct links to several Internet search engines -- Google, Google Scholar, and Yahoo -- are provided; choose Additional search engines to see more options.

Click on 'Washington University Libraries' logo on the top-left of every page in the website.

You can send your questions, comments and suggestions by email or by using an online form. The email address is: library.webmaster@wumail.wustl.edu. To submit a suggestion online, use this link: Comments & Suggestions. This page will provide you with a form to send your suggestion; select 'Library website" as the subject of your message if your comment is about the website.

MOBIUS is a consortium of Missouri libraries, mostly academic, who have joined together to create a union catalog of all the holdings of the member libraries. The union catalog creates a "virtual collection" of the approximately 14 million items in the libraries of Missouri's colleges and universities, with a single user interface in all participating institutions. The union catalog allows faculty and students to request books using any computer in any location with access to the Internet.

The Library Catalog contains the holdings of all libraries at Washington University except the Medical Library. The MOBIUS catalog contains all of the WU holdings, again not including the Medical Library, plus the holdings of the libraries of most Missouri colleges and universities. It includes the MERLIN catalog, which includes the four University of Missouri campuses: Columbia, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Rolla. Please see Using the MOBIUS Catalog or the MOBIUS handout for more information.

Note: You, as a Washington University-affiliated person, can request items ONLY from the WU Library Catalog and from the MOBIUS Catalog. You CANNOT submit a request from the MERLIN or ARTHUR Catalogs (that is, you cannot search those individual catalogs and submit a request) - or any other catalog that becomes a part of the MOBIUS catalog. So:

Start your search in the Washington University library catalog. If the title you want is not available at Washington University, transfer your search request to the MOBIUS catalog, by clicking on the MOBIUS Catalog button. When you find the item you want, click on the line indicating "Display holdings of MOBIUS libraries." If the book is not available at Washington University, click on REQUEST THIS ITEM. You will be asked to identify your institution (WASH U) and enter your name, WU ID, and pickup location where you want the item to be delivered. Submit the request and it will be forwarded to one of the libraries which has an available copy. You will be notified when the book is ready for you to pick up. Note that you can only request books from the MOBIUS catalog, not journals or journal articles.

All campus libraries have periodicals and journals - so first you need to know which campus library has the periodical you need. You can find this information in the Library Catalog. In Olin Library, all current periodicals are shelved on Level 1, across from the Help Desk.

The Libraries have a large and growing collection of online books (ebooks). Many that the Libraries have purchased are available through the Library Catalog. There are lots of links to ebook locations or sources from this page.

Ask at the Help Desk, Olin Library Level 1, to see copies of the various Washington University Catalogs. For catalogs from other colleges and universities, see CollegeSource Online, which contains summary information of more than 31,000 colleges and universities, and the full text (in .pdf format) of their catalogs. The Libraries have a collection of Law and Medical School catalogs which are shelved in the Southwest corner of Level 3, Olin Library.

Most federal and state tax forms are now available on the Internet. Take a look at Tax Forms & Information for links to those websites. The staff at the Help Desk can direct you to the forms on the Internet, but we cannot provide help filling them out or tax advice.

We're working on creating universal passwords, but for now, here's what you'll need:

(NOTE: If you are not a current student, faculty, or staff member of Washington University, you will need to create and use a PIN to view your record in My Catalog if you have a courtesy borrowing card.)

Generally, you are the only person who can see your circulation record. However, there are some instances in which others may see it; please see Confidentiality of Washington University Library Records.

We know that can be a tough call - there are more than a hundred of them available via Find it!. We suggest that you start with MultiSearch or the Subject Guides. Choose the subject closest to your research topic, and look at the resources that a library subject specialist has placed on that page. In addition, you may want to contact a Subject Librarian to discuss your topic.

These are indexes and abstracts of journal literature, usually. Other types of databases also exist, including many that contain full-text journal articles. Choosing one of the Find it! links or Databases option from the Find it! Articles, Databases, Full-Text menu displays a page offering alphabetical and subject-based lists of databases, covering many subject areas. These databases are available to all WU faculty, students, and staff from computers on campus, both in the Libraries and in the computing labs, dorms, and offices. Access from off-campus requires using the proxy server.

Subject Guides pages are developed and maintained by subject specialists on the library staff. They organize selected resources by academic discipline: databases, full-text sources, reference sources, how-to guides, other web sites of interest, listservs, etc. might be listed. Most resources listed are available on the Internet; some resources are in the Libraries' print collections.

Some of the databases you can access through the Libraries' website do not contain any full text articles. However, there are an increasing number that do, that are listed on the Full-text Databases page in the website. Included here are Academic Search Premier, LexisNexis Academic, and many other resources. You may view, print, or email as many full text articles from these databases as you wish.

Just about everything the Library has subscriptions to can be accessed via the proxy server; there are very few titles that forbid off-campus access. If something you’re trying to reach is denying you access, please contact the Electronic Resources Librarian. Include the name of the resource in your message.

The FedEx Kinko's chain has one location upstairs in Mallinckrodt on the Danforth campus. It is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and offers a full selection of drop-off/pick-up printing services, including sending and receiving faxes (for a fee, of course!). Call (314) 935-8481 for more information.

The U.S. Postal Service has an office in The Village, 935-5635.
Collection boxes may be found:

• Directly behind Olin Library on Snow Way.
• In front of the Edison Theater.
• At the entrance to the Millbrook Parking Garage.
• At the north and south ends of Brookings Hall.

For more postal information, including locations and zip codes, visit the USPS Website.

All campus libraries have copiers that accept copy cards; only some accept change. Here's all the info about them: Photocopying.

Olin Library no longer has typewriters for public use. The only public typewriter on campus is at the Ann W. Olin Women's Building, in Room 20.

Patricia Hale in the Executive Programs office in the Knight Center is a notary. She can be reached at (314) 935-7040. You may also call the Law School at (314) 935-6483 to inquire about their notary services.

In Olin Library, it is located at the Check-out Desk, Level 1. Valuable items are kept in a locked drawer, or in the Library Administrative office; notebooks and other items are kept behind the Check-out Desk. Ask there for assistance. In other libraries on campus, ask at the circulation or reference desks for assistance.

Each library on campus has some quiet study areas, but not all have group study areas. In Olin, there are quiet study areas on each floor of the library. There are five group study rooms on Level 2 along the East side. These rooms are for groups of three or more people. Individual users will be asked to leave if a group wants to use the room. Graduate study rooms are located on Levels B, A, 2, and 3. Faculty studies are located on the West side of Levels 2 and 3.