New Changes to the University Libraries

As we approach the new school year, we’re excited to share with you some new changes and improvements that we’ve made to the University Libraries.  

First, we’d like to warmly welcome our new University Librarian, Mary Page, to West Chester.  Mary has over 30 years of senior-level experience and leadership in library administration, research and services in a variety of public higher education settings. We are looking forward to the next Page in our collective story! Be sure to say hi if you see her!

In addition to new leadership, we have made some cosmetic changes to the library over the summer.  Take a look at our new University Libraries website (library.wcupa.edu) and share any feedback you might have via the “Feedback” form found in the navigation bar.  We also relocated the Research Help Desk so that it is next to the Library Help Desk so we can more easily assist patrons who may have questions that overlap our service areas. Stop by during your first week to meet your librarian or catch up from last semester!

In our continuing effort to improve services, we have also extended the loan periods for most of the items in the library.  Most books from our general collection now check out to student for 35 days and to faculty and staff for 6 months! The loan period for books in the Reserve Collection has also been increased to 3 hours to give students more time with the resources they need.  

Students are used to having 125 free pages to print per week, but because we’ve changed the default setting on the printers to double-sided, it’s even easier to conserve your pages now, so you’ll be sure not to run out! Still need something printed single-sided? Don’t worry, it’s easy to change the settings and we’re happy to help you!

In an effort to ensure that on demand books are returned on time and made available to everyone, we’ve increased our fines schedule slightly.  This is the first time in more than 20 years that we’ve raised our fines and they are now more consistent with fine rates for other libraries within the PASSHE system.  We hope that it will encourage everyone to return items on time and in good condition so that we can share them with everyone who needs access to them.

Our new library management system also accommodates requests and renewals online! Log into your library record using your WCU credentials and see what you have checked out, when it’s due, and renew all without leaving your dorm. Now you can also request items directly from the catalog! Submit a request from your laptop wherever you are and stop by the Library Help Desk to pick it up after you receive notification.