All persons with either a valid Virginia driver's license or a current William and Mary ID are eligible for a free library card from the Williamsburg Regional Library. For more information about the Williamsburg Regional Library and its locations, please call (757) 259-4050 or visit the Williamsburg Regional Library's web pages.
Residents of neighboring cities and counties (for example, New Kent, Charles City, York, Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson, Gloucester) are eligible for free library cards at their jurisdiction's public library. Also, residents of Tidewater, Virginia, cities and counties may also obtain free library cards at other Tidewater public libraries. Check with your jurisdiction's public library for details.
All Virginia residents, with a valid driver's license, are able to borrow materials from the Library of Virginia at 800 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000. For more information, please call (804) 692-3500 or visit the Library of Virginia's web pages.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's John D. Rockefeller Library, located at 313 First Street, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185, is a "private library serving CW Foundation staff and dedicated to the study of the history and culture of the 18th-century Chesapeake."
William and Mary faculty, staff, and students have limited borrowing privileges at the Rockefeller Library. To borrow materials from the Rockefeller Library W&M students, staff, and faculty simply show their current W&M IDs.
For more information, please call (757) 565-8512 or visit the Rockefeller Library's web pages.
Note:W&M students, staff, and faculty who wish to obtain a Colonial Williamsburg "Good Neighbor" card (that provides certain admissions and discounts in Colonial Williamsburg) should follow these steps:
Current William and Mary faculty and students may borrow materials in person from fellow members of the Virginia Tidewater Consortium for Higher Education. The members of this consortium are:
*Note: University of Virginia and Virginia Tech are included because of their Virginia Peninsula centers. The consortium card may not be valid at their main campus libraries.
To borrow from one of these libraries, a William and Mary student or faculty member must have a current William and Mary ID card and must obtain a special consortium borrower's card and application from the Circulation Desk at Swem Library before visiting another library.
The consortium card must be validated each semester (for students) or each academic year (for faculty). The borrower is responsible for any fines or lost book charges.
Please contact the Swem Library Circulation Department at (757) 221-3072 for questions about borrowing privileges at consortium libraries.
Online catalogs for these libraries are accessible through the Other Libraries link.
Note: only Swem Library and its branches (Music, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, and Physics) offer borrowing privileges to faculty, staff, and students from the other Tidewater Consortium schools. W&M's Law, Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, education (Learning Resources Center), and business (Professional Resource Center) libraries do not offer Tidewater Consortium borrowing privileges.
Swem Library participates in a nationwide reciprocal borrowing program for faculty. The program is coordinated through OCLC, a non-profit membership organization providing services to libraries. Through this program, William and Mary faculty may borrow books and other materials when visiting any of more than 100 other university libraries. To participate in the program, a faculty member must first obtain a privileges card from Swem Library.
These are issued upon request at the Swem Interlibrary Loan Office, Monday through Friday, between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Each faculty member is responsible for returning materials he or she borrows and for any fines or other penalties incurred for failure to comply with the lending institution's policies.
As faculty plan research travels, chances are those plans will include a visit to at least one participating library. Those visits can be more fruitful and more convenient when books can be borrowed and used outside the library. Swem's interlibrary loan staff can answer questions about whether or not specific libraries participate. The University of Chicago, UCLA, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Smithsonian Institution, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia Tech are among the libraries in the program. For additional information, please contact the Interlibrary Loan Office at (757) 221-3089 or sweill@wm.edu.
The catalogs of many of the libraries that participate in the reciprocal borrowing program can be searched via the Internet. Try the link Other Libraries from the Swem home page. Swem's reference librarians can answer questions about whether or not a particular institution's catalog can be reached through the Web.
