Library Resources and Services for International Students

• Any member of the Brown Community can come to the library and access resources and services for free.
• There are several library locations on campus. Each library contains and collects something unique for the community and provides study spaces that range in ambiance and atmosphere.
• The Library collects more than books. We can help you create, collect and manage data, produce a podcast, stream media, and you can borrow a range of DVDs and other hardware.
• The Library can provide you with articles, books, and films from around the world. We have resource sharing partnerships around the world and can find what you are looking for at no cost to you. You can also search many collections in multiple languages.
• You don't have to visit the Library to read items in the collections. Many of our resources are available electronically, and we have a scanning service for physical materials that are in off-site storage.
• The people who work in the library love questions. The library is full of people with expertise and experience with a variety of research practices. We are here to meet with you to consult on projects at any stage.

Adapted from the University of Chicago Library

When someone says “the library” at Brown, they might be referring to a few different places (and virtual spaces) to know about.

Rockefeller Library (The Rock)
Science Library (SciLi) pronounced: sigh-lie
John Hay Library (The Hay)
Orwig Music Library (Orwig)
The Library Annex (The Annex)

Each of these buildings serves a unique subset of the Brown University community. For more information about what is available in each location head over to the library website: Library Locations

There are also several highly specialized libraries that may interest you - including the John Carter Brown Library and the Library @ Sarah Doyle.

At the most basic level a library provides information resources for a given community. Traditionally, resources looked like books, magazines, journals, musical and sound recordings, maps, and computer files - today we still collect and make all of these types of information available in addition to other emerging information sources like software, data, digital imaging and other special collections.

The libraries at Brown are academic research libraries - our collections and services support the mission of the University-College.

You can borrow books and other resources for free.
You can access textbooks and course readings for free.
You can book an appointment with a research specialist for free.
You can meet in study spaces for free.
You can use physical computing resources and software for free.
You can record your podcast for free.
You can digitize images for free.

The library is also an access point for printing on campus. See the CIS Knowledge Base for more info on printing.

The Library website provides you a central point to search for and find information. We call this central search BruKnow.

From our site you can search for books, browse online journal collections, try to databases and access digital collections.

Most of Brown's electronic resources are accessible from off campus by using the VPN or accessing resources by using the links on the library's website.

The Library can help you find materials from our own Library and from other libraries.