University Library
Your Brown University Library is central to Brown’s teaching and research mission. It offers a wealth of information for students, from books, academic journals, datasets and images to original manuscripts and photographs, research databases, streaming multimedia and other unique resources. Learn how to take full advantage of the spaces, services and resources available to the Brown community by visiting the library website.
Resources and Collections
Through your library, students and faculty have access to library research experts, data services, and physical and digital resources covering over 80 core academic areas and myriad interdisciplinary subjects. The Library’s physical collections are housed in five campus buildings as well as the nearby Library Collections Annex. In addition, the John Carter Brown Library — an independent research institution dedicated to study of the Americas prior to 1825 — is located on campus and open to Brown students.
Library Catalog, Databases and Research Tools
BruKnow is Brown’s catalog search engine — your gateway to Brown’s collections of over 7 million volumes, including over 3 million ebooks, more than 250,000 journals and over 500 research databases. Special collections include some 400,000 monographs, 1.5 million archival files and records, 500,000 pieces of sheet music, and 60,000 each of broadsides, photographs and prints. In addition, Brown students and faculty may borrow from the collections of Ivy Plus libraries (approximately 90 million items), as well as obtain materials from libraries around the globe through interlibrary loan. BruKnow provides the call number and building location for physical materials as well as direct links to online content. If connecting from off-campus, be sure to learn about off-campus access.
Newspapers and other resources like some streaming media, interactive content and tools and even some ebooks and journals must be accessed directly on the publisher’s platform. You can see and find direct links to all library subscribed resources and some open access resources via the A-Z Databases List on the library website.
Special Collections
The John Hay Library is home to Brown University’s remarkable collections of rare books, manuscripts and archival material ranging from Babylonian clay tablets and Egyptian papyri to current-day books, manuscripts and ephemera. The Hay’s collecting policy is organized around seven broad areas of distinctive strength and three integrative themes in the sciences — including American literature and popular culture, LGBTQ writers, speculative fiction, political and diplomatic history and propaganda, health and medicine, the history of mathematics, and military and society. The recently established Voices of Mass Incarceration in the United States collecting focus gathers and provides access to original material in all formats that document the lived experiences of incarcerated individuals in the U.S. as well as those affected by the American prison system. See our selective list of special collections.
The John Hay Library is also a leader in primary source pedagogy, and large numbers of Brown students and faculty engage with the Hay as a site of interdisciplinary exploration and active teaching, learning and research using special collections. Many graduate students conduct their dissertation research using special collections. Programs, exhibitions and collection development at the Hay is continually transformed by and with Brown’s vibrant intellectual community.
Borrowing Materials Beyond Brown
Brown students are able to borrow and place requests for print books and journal articles (in pdf form) from our Ivy Plus partners, as well as receive on-site access and borrowing privileges at their libraries. In addition, books and journal articles from several thousand research libraries worldwide are available through interlibrary loan. Learn more about borrowing from other institutions.
Course Reserves
The Course Reserves portal is used to place text, audio and video materials on reserve for classes. Anything placed on reserve will also be accessible to students in Canvas. Please see the staff in any of the libraries for assistance, contact the Library via chat or email rock-reserves@brown.edu for more information.
Reserving Spaces
The Library offers a variety of spaces for research, teaching and study for groups and individuals. Students can reserve group study rooms at the Rockefeller and Sciences libraries.
Graduate TAs may also access a limited number of small study/collaboration rooms to conduct online sections. Registration is required through 25Live.
Carrels and Lockers
To accommodate the use of materials in long-term projects, graduate and medical students can apply to reserve study carrels at the Rockefeller, Sciences and Orwig libraries by inquiring at the Rockefeller Library service desk.
Lockers located in the stacks at the Rockefeller Library are available to all carrel-holding graduate and medical students. Combination lockers are also available in the Wernig Graduate Student Reading Room at the Rock. All lockers are issued at the circulation desk. Lockers can be renewed and kept for as long as the student is matriculated at Brown.
Library Academic and Research Services
The Library offers comprehensive support services designed to assist you throughout your time at Brown. Services include support for citation management tools like EndNote and Zotero, expert guidance on copyright and fair use, and extensive digital scholarship support for data analysis, visualization and mapping. Whether you need help with literature reviews, accessing special collections or managing research data, library experts provide personalized consultations and training to the academic community at Brown.
Library Experts and Research Consultations
Library experts, including librarians assigned to work directly with each academic department, are available to help you take full advantage of the Library's incredible collections and resources. In addition to offering personalized research consultations, librarians curate research guides, build collections to support individual research needs and offer workshops and other educational opportunities to upskill and engage with research tools and methods across the disciplines.
You can schedule a consultation with the library expert in your field of study when you begin your program at Brown. Consultations can be scheduled directly with library experts, and questions can be asked via chat or by email through rock@brown.edu (general) or hay@brown.edu (special collections). Through our Ask-a-Librarian service, you can connect with library experts and staff who provide guidance on library services and resources for your specific field of study.
Research Guides and FAQ
Research Guides are available for all academic departments on a wide variety of specialized topics and courses. Online tutorials offer curated information to help you explore the Library’s resources, learn how to use a new tool or method, discover a new data workflow and connect to public and open access digital content.
Library Instruction and Workshops
Librarians are dedicated partners in your academic success, offering course-integrated instruction and specialized workshops in areas like advanced searching, information and data literacy, archival and primary source research, GIS, data management, digital scholarship and citation management. View the full calendar of workshops offered by the Library.
Research Lifecycle Support
In addition to traditional library resources, the Library supports the full research lifecycle with services for grant applications, data management planning and scholarly publishing. Through our repository services, digital publications platform and research impact metrics, we help you preserve and showcase your scholarly work while maximizing its impact in your field. You can access these services through individual consultations, workshops or our online guides and tutorials.
Health and Biomedical Library Services
Health and Biomedical Library Services provides direct and focused support for Brown’s programs in medicine, public health and biomedical sciences. Services include help with literature reviews, publishing, reference management, locating and managing grant-related publications, public access compliance, writing data management and sharing plans, using the Brown Digital Repository (BDR) and more. To find out more information or to schedule a consultation, please contact our team at HealthSciLibrarians@brown.edu. For upcoming events and workshops, see the Library’s calendar.
Library Data Services
The Library Data Services team provides comprehensive support for finding, processing and analyzing data, with particular expertise in geospatial, census, socio-economic, financial and environmental datasets. Library experts offer guidance through research consultations, instruction, tutorials and workshops on data-oriented projects, assistance with data processing and scripting, and consultations on GIS and geospatial analysis, text and data mining and data sciences methods.
Tutorials
Guides and videos with information about how to use the Library are available online, including how to conduct various aspects of research.
Opportunities in the Library
The Library offers numerous opportunities for students, faculty and visiting scholars to expand their scholarly and professional skills through direct engagement with collections and programs, currently including the Interdisciplinary Opportunities in the Humanities and Social Sciences fellowship program. Proctorships are often available through library departments, including Brown University Digital Publications and GeoData@SciLi. Employment opportunities for students are frequently available in a range of areas including specialized language cataloging, archival work and digital projects.
Digital Scholarship
The Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS), the University’s digital scholarship hub, provides inspiration, expertise, services and teaching in digital scholarship methodologies, project development and publication to Brown faculty, staff and students. Graduate students also have opportunities to collaborate with CDS staff on faculty-driven digital projects and publications via proctorships or employment.
Doctoral Certificate in Digital Humanities
CDS and the Cogut Institute for the Humanities are pleased to partner together to offer the Doctoral Certificate in Digital Humanities, which provides doctoral students with a foundation in digital methods and skills for their research, as well as an understanding of the broader theoretical questions that digital approaches to scholarship offer. The certificate is aimed at Ph.D. students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, though doctoral students from all disciplines are welcome to apply.
Instruction and Consultations
CDS is here to help students, faculty and scholars across campus understand and use digital methodologies in research and scholarship. CDS staff teach workshops, help design class digital projects, support and teach digital humanities courses and offer consulting services.
Workshops
CDS offers workshops on data, tools and methods. Each summer, we offer a two-week digital humanities workshop series.
Consultations
Have a digital scholarship project you’d like help with? Wondering how digital tools might complement other aspects of your research project? CDS staff are available to meet with you to discuss your ideas to help you get started in the field of digital scholarship. Schedule a consultation by emailing cds_info@brown.edu.
Brown University Digital Publications
Brown University Digital Publications — a collaboration between the University Library and the Dean of the Faculty, generously launched with support from the Mellon Foundation with additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Library and Museum Services — creates exciting new conditions for the production and sharing of knowledge. Widely recognized as accessible, intentional and inclusive, Brown’s novel, university-based approach to digital content development is helping to set the standards for the future of scholarship in the digital age.
Library Spaces
Teaching and Event Spaces
Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab
Library workshops and events are offered online and in the Rockefeller Library’s Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), which was renovated in January 2025 as a Zoom room and is well equipped for hybrid meetings. The DSL, located on Level 1, enables scholars across disciplines to engage with research data using advanced visualization hardware and software, to examine and compare high-resolution digital content and to experience audiovisual media in a suitably equipped campus space.
Sidney E. Frank Digital Studio
The Sidney E. Frank Digital Studio on Level 1 at the Rockefeller Library provides a unique and exciting intellectual hub for digitally enhanced scholarship at Brown. Infrastructure and staff in the Digital Studio facilitate both short-term and extended engagements with academic questions that benefit from the infusion of technology and new methodologies in research and learning. Open to all faculty and students, the studio contains a soundproof audio/video recording suite and a 3D scanner.
Vincent J. Wernig Graduate Student Reading Room
The Vincent J. Wernig Graduate Student Reading Room is located on Level 2 of the Rockefeller Library, up the stairs to the right of the main entrance. It includes a large seminar room and kitchen. All graduate students can access the space by swiping their ID cards at the door.
University Library Locations
John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library
The John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, known as “the Rock,” is the primary teaching and research library for the humanities and social sciences. Book checkout, interlibrary loan, course reserves and help services are available on the entrance level (Level 1). On Level 2, graduate students have exclusive ID-swipe access to the Vincent J. Wernig Graduate Student Reading Room. The Racial Justice Research Center is also located on Level 2.
The Rock provides a variety of study spaces to suit different work styles, including open, comfortable seating as well as group study rooms, many of which can be reserved. The “absolute quiet” study room is on Level A. Individual study carrels are located throughout the building. East Asian collections, located on Level 3, include the Gardner Collection and the traditionally styled Gardner Room, which mostly consists of historical Chinese material from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). A small café in the lobby of the Rock provides a convenient place for a study break or to meet informally with friends and colleagues.
Sciences Library
The tallest building on campus at 14 stories, the Sciences Library, known as “the SciLi," holds print materials in medicine, psychology, neural science, biology, chemistry, earth, environmental and planetary sciences, physics, engineering, computer science and pure and applied mathematics. The Friedman Study Center, located on Level A, includes computer clusters and library services.
GeoData@SciLi
The 11th floor is home to the GeoData@SciLi space, a consultation and workspace devoted to geospatial data and research that's part of the Center for Library Exploration and Research (CLEAR). GeoData@SciLi offers research consultations on finding, accessing, processing and using geospatial, demographic and socio-economic data; workshops; access to datasets purchased by the Library; computer terminals for accessing social sciences data resources; and expert support for finding and studying the Library’s collection of over 100,000 maps.
John Hay Library
The John Hay Library, known as “the Hay,” houses Brown’s Special Collections and Archives. The classic and grand Willis Reading Room is open to all for quiet study. The Gildor Family Special Collections Reading Room is open to all Brown community members as well as the public via appointment. The newly renovated conservation lab is used to care for library materials, and can be used for collaborative class instruction. The Hay's special collections materials can be requested online with an account in the request system, Aeon. The Hay is also available as a primary source laboratory for instructors and students. It hosts over 150 class sessions from nearly all Brown departments each year, and staff are available to teach sessions and to help graduate students and faculty learn about researching and teaching with primary sources.
Virginia Baldwin Orwig Music Library
The Virginia Baldwin Orwig Music Library, located in the Orwig Music Building and known as “Orwig,” houses the main teaching and research collections in music and related areas such as dance and musical theater. Its collections include LPs, books, scores, periodicals, compact discs and DVDs. Media materials (CDs, DVDs, LPs) circulate to all members of the Brown community, and Orwig has playback equipment for a number of legacy formats including CD, DVD, LP, VHS and Blu-Ray. Graduate students can borrow media materials for one week.
Champlin Memorial Medical Library
Located within The Warren Alpert Medical School at 222 Richmond Street, the Champlin Memorial Library, known as “Champlin,” is open 24/7 to medical students. Though it contains no on-site physical collections, online access to the Library's extensive collection of electronic journals, textbooks and databases is fully available with a Brown ID via Core Health Sciences Resources. Medical faculty and staff may use Champlin while in the medical school building during business hours; after-hours access is restricted to medical students.
The Annmary Brown Memorial (currently closed for renovation)
The unique Annmary Brown Memorial, completed in 1907, is a museum, mausoleum and memorial. Designed by architect Norman Isham, its bronze doors feature symbolic representations of Art and Learning, signaling to visitors the many treasures to explore and the array of cultural arts programming throughout the year. On exhibit are paintings from the collection of Annmary Brown and her husband, General Rush Hawkins, and special collections items from the John Hay Library.
Library Collections Annex
The Library Collections Annex, a high-density storage facility with a capacity of 1.8 million volumes, is located approximately four miles from campus. Materials shelved at the annex can be requested using BruKnow, the Library’s online catalog, for retrieval and use on campus. Journal articles from titles shelved at the annex can be scanned and delivered to your desktop.
John Carter Brown Library
The John Carter Brown Library, an independently administered and funded center for advanced research in history and the humanities, is also located on the Brown campus, right on the College Green. It is home to one of the world’s outstanding collections of printed books and other materials related to the early Americas. The JCB's collection represents more than 65,000 rare books, maps and manuscripts created in more than 200 languages spanning more than three centuries. A Welcome and Access plan initiated in 2021 included the renovation of the historic building’s west entrance and a new programming plan. The JCB launched Americana, a new digital platform offering open access to the collection, in the spring of 2023.
The JCB hosts talks, workshops, reading groups, and other activities, and graduate students from any field are welcome to attend. The JCB also offers a suite of fellowships for research support including the J.M. Stuart Fellowship (tenable for nine months), which is open only to Brown graduate students in the humanities or social sciences whose dissertation topic relates to the early history and culture of the Americas.
Accessibility
The Library works closely with Student Accessibility Services (SAS) to ensure equitable access to library resources and services. The main entrances to the Rockefeller, Sciences, and Orwig libraries are wheelchair accessible. The John Hay Library’s accessible entrance is located on the north side of the building. The service desks in the libraries can arrange to have materials retrieved from the stacks and can provide other tailored services. The Sciences Library has a computer workstation with magnification and reading software that can be accessed through SAS.
Accessible Study Rooms at the Rock and SciLi
There are three accessible study rooms available at the Rockefeller Library (rooms 327, 328, 329) for students who need a quiet space with reduced distractions. Each room can be used by one person at a time and can be reserved for two hours per day, with access available during open building hours. SAS students may reserve a room up to two times per week.
Reservations for SAS Library Study Rooms are made through the Library and are available for registered SAS students. For concerns or questions about the reservation system, please call the SAS office at (401) 863-9588 during weekday business hours, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
SAS students may also access room A-17 in the Sciences Library on a first-come, first-served basis. We ask that students utilize that room for one two-hour period per day, twice per week maximum.
Feedback
We encourage your feedback about any aspect of library services, resources and facilities. Feedback can be made through this anonymous form, which has an option for inputting your contact information, or you can email WelcomeToYourLibrary@brown.edu.