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Library Services

Services Available to Graduate Students at Every Duke Library

The descriptions below are intended only as a general overview. Contact a library for more complete information about these and other services.

  • Checking Out Books and Journals. Graduate students may borrow materials from any Duke library and return them to any campus library. Alternatively, they may also request that materials be delivered to any campus library they specify for convenient pick-up or return. The length of the circulation period for books and journals varies from library to library as do renewal policies.

  • Reserving Materials for Course Use. Guidelines for reserving materials for class use as well as submission forms for books, e-reserves, and videos are available at library.duke.edu/course-support/course-reserves. These guidelines apply at Perkins Library, Lilly Library, and the Music Library. Contact the Divinity Library, the Goodson Law Library, the Medical Center Library, and the Ford Library at Fuqua to reserve materials at those libraries for your classes

  • Document Delivery. The document delivery and interlibrary loan service, offered at each campus library, obtains books, microforms, dissertations, journal articles, reports, and other materials not available on campus.

  • Reference/Research Assistance. Librarians at public service desks offer general and specialized assistance in the use of electronic and print sources and document retrieval. In addition to working with students and faculty at these desks, reference librarians also assist users via telephone, email, chat reference, and IM. Chat reference assistance and IM are accessible from the libraries’ website at library.duke.edu/research/ask.

  • Instructional Services and Resources for Classes and Labs. Librarians offer a range of services to instructors, including workshops, course-related websites, and subject guides. Details are available at library.duke.edu/research/citing/refworks.

  • Assistance with Copyright and Other Scholarly Communication Issues. The library’s ScholarWorks Center can advise graduate students on copyright issues, scholarly publishing, data management, building and managing digital research projects, research metrics, and more. For more information, contact scholarworks@duke.edu.