How Can Students Reserve Lippincott Library Study Rooms?

I remember the first time I needed something from Lippincott — I felt like I was on a scavenger hunt for a rare comic variant. Start by visiting the library’s official website: that’s where hours, location, study-room booking, and the catalog search live. If you’re on campus, you usually sign in with your school credentials or student ID; off campus, you’ll typically use the same institutional login or a VPN/proxy service to access subscription journals and databases. Once you’re in, use the catalog to find physical books and electronic holdings, then click through to full-text databases for articles. If a title is on course reserve, check the reserve listing; for something they don’t have, request it via interlibrary loan. Don’t forget the research guides—those subject pages can point you straight to business databases, case studies, and citation tools. I’ve asked a librarian through chat late at night and they steered me to a database I’d never heard of; a quick consult can save hours. If you need lending details or alumni access, the website or the help desk will explain guest privileges and borrowing policies.

Okay, quick heads-up from someone who lives for late-night study sessions: I don’t have live access to today’s exact hours for Lippincott Library, so I always double-check before trekking over. The fastest way I find the current schedule is to Google "Lippincott Library hours" plus the university name (if you’re not sure which campus it’s on). The library’s official page will usually show regular hours, today’s exceptions, and holiday closures. If I’m in a rush, I’ll also check the library’s Google Maps listing (it often has “Open now”), call the main desk, or peek at the library’s social feed—some places post last-minute changes there. Pro tip from my experience: during midterms and finals many academic libraries extend evening hours or go 24/7 for a stretch, so the posted hours can be different from the semester baseline. If you want, tell me the campus or city and I’ll walk you through the exact steps to find today’s timetable.

Okay, here's the chill, step-by-step version I use whenever I need something my own library doesn't have — it usually works at Lippincott. First, I search the Lippincott catalog (or the Penn Libraries catalog if you're part of Penn) to confirm the item isn’t available locally. Then I sign into my library account with my university credentials and look for a link labeled something like “Interlibrary Loan,” “Request from another library,” or “Document Delivery.” That page will typically ask for the citation details: title, author, year, ISBN/ISSN, and if it’s an article, the exact pages or DOI. I always paste the DOI or URL if I have it; it speeds things up. After submission I get a confirmation email and occasional status updates. Articles often arrive as PDFs in a few days, books take longer (often 1–2 weeks, sometimes more). You can usually choose electronic delivery or request a physical pickup at Lippincott’s circulation desk. If something’s urgent, I’ll call or email the ILL staff directly — they’re friendly and can flag requests. If you hit a snag, bring your citation and ask staff at the desk in person; they can sometimes place special requests or suggest alternatives. Good luck — ILL has rescued so many late-night reading binges for me!

I still remember the first time I wandered into the Lippincott Library and felt like I’d found a secret treasure trove. From my visits, their special collections lean heavily toward rare and unique primary-source materials: rare books and early printed volumes, manuscript collections from local figures and families, archives documenting institutional history, and lots of photograph and map collections. There are also items like artists’ books, broadsides, and ephemera that you don’t usually see on regular shelves. What I appreciated most was how those collections support all sorts of projects — I once spent an afternoon poring over a set of 19th-century city maps and a small archive of letters that made a research paper come alive. The library provides reading-room access for fragile items, digitized copies of selected materials, finding aids to trace fonds and series, and staff who help with permissions and reproduction requests. If you’re planning a visit, I’d say browse the online catalog first and email the special collections staff so they can pull things for your session.

I love that Lippincott Library treats citation help like a craft rather than a chore. The first time I wandered in with a panic-induced stack of articles and a looming bibliography deadline, a librarian sat down with me and showed me the LibGuide for citation styles — it was like a cheat sheet for sanity. They clearly lay out APA, MLA, Chicago, and other styles with examples for in-text citations, footnotes, and reference lists. Beyond the guides, they run workshops and drop-in sessions where they demonstrate citation managers like Zotero, EndNote, and RefWorks, and show how to export citations straight from databases. They also help with trickier stuff — citing archival material, images, or a tweet — and can review a bibliography to catch formatting inconsistencies. If you prefer remote help, they have an email/chat service and you can book one-on-one consultations for hands-on help. I always leave feeling less frazzled and with a cleaner reference list than when I arrived.

I’ve checked this out a few times and learned that the short version is: it depends. When I graduated I assumed there’d be one fixed price, but libraries run their alumni privileges very differently. Some Lippincott libraries (depending on the university) give alumni free on-site access and reading-room privileges, while others charge a modest annual fee for borrowing, interlibrary loan, or extended online access. If you want an exact number, the fastest route is to look up the Lippincott Library page for the specific school and find their "Alumni Services" or "Library Privileges" section, or call the circulation desk. Typical real-world ranges I’ve seen from friends are anywhere from free to somewhere between $20–$100/year depending on borrowing rights. Also check whether student ID/alumni association membership affects the price—sometimes alumni cards bundled with alumni association benefits give better access. I ended up getting a one-year card the first year after graduating just to grab books and use the scanners; it was worth it for my research, but if you mostly need quiet space or one-off scans, you might not need full membership.

I love how a quick catalog search can feel like a treasure hunt—whenever I need something from Lippincott Library I head straight to Penn Libraries’ discovery tool (often called Franklin). Usually I go to the Penn Libraries website and use the main search box or go directly to Franklin to run a title, author, or subject search. Once results show up I filter by location or location facet and pick “Lippincott Library” so I only see items housed there. That’s how I found a Wharton case study last month without trekking across campus twice. If what I want is an e-resource, I sign in with my Penn credentials (or use the campus VPN if I’m offsite) so I can access electronic journals or databases. And when I’m stuck, I use the library’s chat/“Ask a Librarian” service or email the Lippincott staff—those folks are super helpful about recalls, course reserves, or requesting items via interlibrary loan. Pretty straightforward once you try it a couple times, and it saves me so much searching time.

I’ve poked around Lippincott’s site enough times that I treat the library catalog like a little treasure map — and yes, many editions of textbooks show up as digital copies you can check out or access online. The best first move is to search the Lippincott catalog (or your institution’s library portal) and then filter results to “e-book” or “online.” That will tell you whether a textbook is available as a library-licensed ebook, a course reserve, or only as a physical copy. If an ebook is available, the record usually explains how access works: read in-browser, download for a limited time to an app, or access via a publisher platform that enforces simultaneous-user limits. If you don’t see what you need, I’ve found emailing the library’s reserve or subject librarian gets fast results — they often can add an e-text or suggest alternatives, like a chapter scan or an interlibrary loan. It’s a small habit that saves me from buying expensive textbooks, and it’s surprisingly satisfying to find what I need right from my laptop.