Yale Library launches expanded borrowing benefits for alumni

October 20, 2022

After a long pandemic hiatus, Yale Library’s borrowing benefits for alumni are back—with new options and benefits that one graduate calls “a gamechanger.”

In mid-September the library launched three new borrowing programs for alumni (and their spouses) that include options for receiving scans of library materials by email and library books by mail. Fees range from $90 to $250 annually, with other fee options for shorter periods of time.

Writing on Twitter, Patrick Burroughs, M.Div. ’14, an instructor at Harvard University, called the new alumni programs “a game changer,” especially the ability to request and receive scanned articles and chapters with a 48-hour turnaround. “I am so, so grateful to have access to Sterling and @ydslibrary [the Divinity Library] again, from afar,” he wrote.

“[T]his is… huge,” another Yale graduate tweeted back to Burroughs, adding, “I’ll be in the odd position of asking my dean to reimburse me for subscribing to a different university’s library.”

Aside from the paid options, alumni visiting campus will have free access to the Sterling Memorial Library stacks, including staff retrieval of up to 20 items day from the stacks or the offsite Library Shelving Facility. Alumni visitors may also access licensed electronic resources onsite using a small number of public computers in the Sterling nave.

Library access for alumni, visiting researchers, the New Haven community, and others was paused for two years due to the University’s pandemic restrictions on visitors to campus. Visitor access to iconic public spaces like the Sterling nave, the Beinecke exhibition gallery, and special reading rooms opened earlier this year. Now borrowing privileges for members of the public and alumni have been restored.

Pre-COVID and now again, Yale Library’s access for visitors without a current Yale affiliation is one of the most expansive among major research libraries.

Read more about Yale Library’s new borrowing programs for alumni.

Read about access for other visitors and  Yale Library COVID updates.

–by Patricia M. Carey