Welcome!																																																					Hours					Phone Numbers

Fondren Library is pleased to welcome you to our academic community. We hope this summary page will give a quick introduction to information services and put you in touch with those that best serve your needs.

Collections

There are 15 subject librarians assigned to work with one or more academic disciplines. Please check this list to find the librarian who can work with you to purchase resources, create class-specific resource listings in Owlspace, help direct students to find/evaluate/use scholarly research materials, etc.

In addition, Fondren provides rapid interlibrary loan (at no cost) to faculty, staff and students whenever we do not have an item (or when our copy is temporarily unavailable). Articles are almost always delivered as scanned, digital copies within a few days.

Circulation of physical collections

and

Course Reserves

The Library's Circulation/Reserve department is located on the first floor, just inside the west entrance. Staff are available at this service desk all of the hours that the building is open, and can assist with building navigation and other issues, as well as with borrowing physical library collections and setting up your course reserves using library or personal materials.

Off-campus access to Digital Collections

Fondren Library purchases a large quantity of online materials, as well as providing access to local digital materials.  Digital books, encyclopaedias, etc. are all listed - with clickable URL links - in our online catalog; electronic journals are more completely listed in our ejournal portal.

If you are physically located on campus, you will be able to use all library resources without further identifying yourself (i.e. logging in).  If, however, you are off campus, you must identify yourself as a member of the Rice University community and a valid user of Fondren's resources.   Please see the information about how to achieve off-campus access to library subscriptions.  (Note, the online catalog and ejournal portal can be searched by anyone without identification; these tools are finding aids only, and do not perform the identification process.)

Other services Fondren Library provides include:

Hands-on assistance and training for production of multimedia resources for use in classes, publication, or presentations via our Digital Media Center (located in Herring Hall).  The DMC also has a variety of related equipment (cameras, etc.) available on loan. Hands-on assistance and training in use of geographic information software to analyse and present data via our GIS/Data Center.  The GIS/DC also has specialized equipment available.