The circulation desk is to your right as you enter the library. It is here that you may
1) Check out
circulating materials including interlibrary loans.
2) Request materials that have been placed on reserve by faculty or the library staff.
3) Request recent back issues of magazines, journals, or newspapers.
Unbound periodicals and most reserve materials may not be taken from the library, but still must be charged out from the desk.
To check out any item, you will need your student I.D. The library cannot check anything out to you without your I.D.
All circulating materials may be borrowed for a period of up to four weeks for students and sixteen weeks for faculty and staff. All materials may be renewed. We bill for replacement costs after items are forty five days overdue.
Materials may be placed on reserve to give a number of users access to a limited number of items. Most reserve materials may not be taken from the building and their use in the library is restricted to a period of two hours at a time. Two hours before closing, reserves may be checked out overnight, but must be returned no later than one hour after the library opens the following day. Fines are twenty five cents per hour overdue.
Schewe Library currently owns over 143,000 books and bound periodicals. All circulating books are shelved according to the Dewey Decimal Classification System. The 000s through the 320s are housed on the lower level. The remainder of the 300s are housed on the main level. The 400s and above are located on the upper level.
The reference section houses a collection of non-circulating materials such as general and subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and handbooks, which are usually consulted briefly for a specific item of information. The reference librarian's desk is opposite the circulation desk, and the reference collection itself is located on the shelves in that immediate area. All reference books are marked with an "R" above the call number.
Schewe Library currently receives 600 different print periodical titles and over 10,000 online full text periodicals. When an print issue arrives it is first placed on the browsing shelves on the west side of the library. Recent unbound back issues must be requested at the circulation desk. Earlier issues are bound and shelved on the lower level.
Schewe Library maintains the Jacksonville Journal Courier on microfilm in a cabinet on the lower level. The College Rambler is kept in the microfilm reader/printer alcove on the main level. The New York Times is available through the Historical New York Times database which allows searching the full text of the Times back to 1851. Back issues of the other newspapers are kept in the orange hanging files opposite the elevator in the lower level. Newspapers and periodicals do not circulate.
Children's books are arranged in fiction by author and non-fiction by Dewey classification and are housed on the lower level. Recent efforts to collect award-winning titles have boosted our collection, and these may searched using keywords such as Newbery or Caldecott in our online catalog.
Just to the right of the library entrance there is a coin-operated photocopier. There is also a photocopier on the lower level, close to the bound periodicals. Copies can be made of materials in microform by using one of the microfilm reader/printers, located in the microform alcove on the main level. There is also a single microfilm reader/printer on the lower level. The cost of photocopying or printing from microfilm is 5 cents per copy.
Reciprocal Borrowing / Interlibrary Loan
If Schewe Library does not have an item that you need, our catalog can also search the collections of seventy other Illinois libraries. You can request items directly from these libraries. Books usually within a week. Schewe Library also has traditional interlibrary loan service to obtain books and periodical articles. Schewe Library has reciprocal borrowing agreements with MacMurray College and the Jacksonville Public Library so you can check out books from those institutions also.
Restrooms are located in the northeast corner of the building on the lower level.
Non-alcoholic beverages are allowed in the library (but please be careful).
Food, alcoholic beverages, and tobacco products are not allowed in the library.