Visiting Another Library
Throughout North America, you can generally visit other university libraries. You should also be able to look at books they own, although if they have closed stacks you may have to ask someone to bring the books to you.
As graduate students at the University of Waterloo, you have special privileges at other university libraries in Ontario and Quebec:
- you have the library privileges of an undergraduate student at these libraries
- for Ontario, you use your WatCard
- for Quebec, you should get an Inter-University Borrowing Privilieges (IUBP) card from a Circulation Desk at the UW Liberary
- you may borrow books (usually for 2 weeks) and bring them back here
- you may return these books to the Circulation Desk at the Davis or Porter Library, but remember
- to indicate that you directly borrowed the items from another library
- to ask for a receipt to prove that you have returned the item
Finally... keep in mind that:
- it is fairly easy to determine which university library has a particular volume of a given journal (Information Desk staff can point you to "union lists of serials")
- if you have an idea that a particular university library has good resources in your subject area, you can use their online catalogue (via UW Electronic Library) to see if they have particular books or particular journals
- BUT remember that when you visit another library, a particular item may not be where it is supposed to be on the stacks; so it is better to make a trip for several items, rather than just one
Librarian, Information Services and Resources
Last Updated:
June 9, 2006
