Your Palacard serves as your library card, and is required for circulation transactions. Some library materials, such as bound periodicals and reference books, circulate only with permission from a Circulation staff member or Reference librarian. Other items, such as current periodicals and rare books, do not circulate under any circumstances. If you would like to see what you currently have checked out, you can view your record using the barcode number from your Palacard.

Due Dates

The faculty circulation period for most books is 91 days. The circulation period for leisure books is 21; the period for media such as videos and books on tape is 7 days. Faculty members are not usually charged library fines, but are asked to return materials on time or renew them as appropriate. Faculty members will be billed for items that are lost or damaged, including the base cost of the item plus a $15.00 replacement processing fee. Faculty members who leave Furman must return ALL materials checked out before departing.

Renewing Books and Videos

If you need an item for longer than the normal loan period, you can renew it online, over the phone, or in person. You may see what you have checked out, when it is due, and renew online using the barcode number from your Palacard. To renew by phone, you may call the main library circulation desk at 294-2265 or the music library at 294-3795 whenever they are open. Note that items requested by students or other faculty members are subject to recall and may not be renewed.

Placing Items on Reserve

The purpose of placing materials on reserve is to make common readings readily available to students in a short amount of time. Faculty members may place items on either print reserve or electronic reserve (e-reserves). Please allow at least two working days before students will need the materials to allow time for processing.

The following guidelines should be used when placing items on reserve:

1. Items which are recommended but not required reading should not be placed on reserve.
2. Non-circulating items such as reference books, periodicals, government documents, and special collections items will not be placed on reserve.
3. Textbooks will be placed on reserve only when the bookstore has insufficient copies to meet demand and additional copies are on order.
4. Items may not remain on reserve indefinitely. All items are removed from reserve at the end of each term.
5. Note that putting copies of articles or chapters on reserve may violate U.S. copyright laws. This is almost always true if copies are put on reserve for more than one term. In this case, the faculty member should request permission from the publisher. The library will not put copies on reserve for more than one term without written permission from the copyright holder. Questions concerning copyright and reserves should be addressed to Caroline Mills, Instruction/Access Services Librarian.

Placing Materials on Reserve:

Faculty may place print materials on reserve at the Circulation Desk by completing the online Faculty Reserve Request Form or by filling out a paper copy and giving it to the Circulation Assistant on duty. Professors may choose to place items on reserve for one, three, six, or twenty-four hours, or for three or seven days.

To use e-reserves, faculty should obtain a course in Blackboard from C&IS. If the faculty member does not have a Blackboard course, use the Blackboard Course Request Form to obtain one. On this form indicate that e-reserves will be utilized, this allows the Library Circulation department access to your Blackboard course. Alternately, the faculty member may add the Library Circulation user account to their Blackboard course as a course builder.

Materials to be placed on e-reserve that are already in an electronic format may be sent to the Reserve PDFs conference in First Class accompanied by the Faculty Reserve Request Form. Materials to be scanned should also be accompanied by a reserve request form and should be brought to the circulation desk or given to the Circulation Assistant on duty.

Accessing Reserves:

Print Reserve materials are kept behind the Circulation Desk and are organized by course number. You can check what is currently on reserve using Alcuin. You may search by either Instructor or Course.

E-reserves are accessed via Blackboard. Log in to your Blackboard account and choose "Reserved Readings" under the course documents button.

Booking Materials for Classroom Use

Booking requests are used to ensure the availability of library owned materials for faculty use. By booking materials, faculty members may schedule the availability of library items to correspond with their teaching syllabus. Faculty may make booking requests for all circulating library materials, such as books, DVDs or videos. These requests should be limited to items that are for a specific class or event.

Bookings can be initiated at the Circulation Desk by completing the online Booking Request Form or by filling out a paper Booking Request Form and giving it to the Circulation Assistant on duty. Bookings should be made as far in advance as possible, but at least three working days will be required to process booking requests.

Faculty members can confirm booking requests through Alcuin using View Your Record. After logging in to your library account, all scheduled bookings will display on the left side of the screen.

You can search the holdings of other libraries using a union catalog such as WorldCat or the Union Lists of Serials, or you can also search the catalogs of other libraries individually if you prefer.

Furman has circulation agreements with most colleges and universities in South Carolina, including Clemson, the College of Charleston, the University of South Carolina, and Wofford. In order to borrow books from another South Carolina college or university, you must first come to the Circulation Desk in the main library at Furman and get a South Carolina Library Borrowing Card.

Furman also has circulation agreements with Davidson, Duke, and Johnson C. Smith in North Carolina as members of the Duke Endowment Libraries group. You can borrow books from these libraries using your Palacard. If you borrow items from these libraries, you may bring them to the main library at Furman and we will return them for you.

Books and articles from any library may be obtained via Interlibrary Loan. Interlibrary loan materials usually take 5-10 days to arrive.