Student Carrel Information

There are approximately 300 open carrels in the Central Library and many other open study spaces and alcoves. 255 of those open carrels can be assigned to graduate students or undergraduates working on a senior thesis. Undergraduates must bring in a letter to the service desk from their advisor in order to be assigned an open carrel. Graduate students can be assigned an open carrel on a first come first served basis at the Service desk. A carrel assignment card is completed and then the student can pick out one of the available carrels. Carrels are assigned for an academic year and can be renewed annually in the spring. Students who are assigned a carrel can check out books to that carrel and those books must remain on the carrel.

1. Cards for charging books to carrels are available at the Circulation Desk. Complete a carrel card for each book, printing legibly. Circulation Staff will charge the books to the carrel. The Circulation Desk Assistant will leave the charge card in the book, with the due date and call number showing. When you are finished with the book, invert the carrel card. The book will be picked up, discharged, and returned to the shelf by the Circulation Staff. Do not return books to the shelves yourself.

2. Books charged to a carrel for more than two weeks may be recalled by another borrower. When a book is removed from your carrel, a notice will be left on the carrel desk with the reason and date of removal indicated. Books needed for Reserve may be removed earlier than two weeks.

3. Books charged to a carrel must remain on that carrel at all times. If you wish to take a book charged to your carrel from the building, you must have the book checked out using your ID card. Please leave the carrel charge card in the book for Circulation Staff to discard at the time of personal check out.

4. Periodicals, Reference materials, leisure reading books and documents may not be charged to a carrel. Any materials not charged to a carrel will be removed. Repeated violations will result in the withdrawal of a carrel assignment.

5. Please help us prolong the life of Vanderbilt library material. Seemingly harmless acts can have a cumulative detrimental effect on the long-term life of books. Please refrain from bending down corners or using inappropriate bookmarks such as post it notes, paperclips, pencils or other large objects in library materials.

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Study Rooms

Please see the study rooms page for information on reserving study rooms and descriptions of the rooms in Central Library that are available to be reserved by students for study purposes.

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