The Chicago School Library: Services: Services for Alumni &amp; Guests

Services for Visitors

The Chicago School University Library is currently only able to provide limited services to visitors, including alumni and guests. If you'd like to visit one of our locations, please email us at library@thechicagoschool.edu to schedule an appointment.

Due to campus safety best practices and guidance, the library is unable to accept walk-in visitors.

Alum Services

Due to our licensing agreements with our vendors, database access is not currently available to alumni remotely or at physical library locations.

Alumni can:

Check out physical books from the library's collections at any location
Access a curated list of Open Access Databases via the Library's Databases A-Z List

Please schedule a time to come into the library by emailing us at library@thechicagoschool.edu

Guest Services

The Chicago School University Library currently offers limited access for guest users and visitors.

A guest or visitor may:

Check out items from the library's general collections

Please schedule a time to come into the library by emailing us at library@thechicagoschool.edu

Options for Access to Information After Graduation

You may be able to meet many of your research and information needs through libraries other than The Chicago School University Library:

Take advantage of your local public library for Interlibrary Loan. You may be able to request articles and other materials owned by other libraries and have them delivered to your email or local library at little to no charge.
Many public libraries also offer remote access to research databases, ebooks, and periodicals to library card holders.
Check to see if your state library offers access to electronic resources to state residents. Here is a list of state libraries.
Try visiting an academic library near your location. Many public university libraries allow visitors guest privileges which would enable you to search their library databases on-site and read, print, or email full-text electronic articles. Just be sure to check with them before you travel since they may have restrictions such as limited hours, or requirements to make an appointment for public access.

Online search engines/ databases with peer reviewed or scholarly content:

Google Scholar (while its coverage of the scholarly literature is comprehensive, including access to free content, it is not a curated controlled database, and comes with a number of limitations.)
PubMed (provides good coverage of the medical and health sciences, and some social sciences, with access to many free articles)
APA PsycNET (search over 5,749,112 journal articles, book chapters in psychology and social sciences, some content is full text. Subscriptions for APA members for access to more full text content is $139/ yr. )

Popular tools for locating Open Access articles:

OA Button: Find OA articles using a browser extension, or though the website –also facilitates requesting articles from authors
Unpaywall “An open database of 32,177,562 free scholarly articles.”
CORE Discovery is a plugin that provides you with access to OA research. ”Currently contains 170,770,533 open access articles.”