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Research Guides

Special Collections Access

Submit a teaching request

Thank you for your interest in booking a class visit to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. This page will guide you through using the Special Collections Access system to request materials for your class visit.

You must book your class visit and staff must confirm the session before you can begin submitting item requests. If you have not yet booked your class visit, please visit Teaching at the Fisher Library to review our policies and procedures and complete the Fisher Library Teaching Request Form. Once your session has been confirmed, follow the instructions below to request items.

Requesting items

Class visits are organized in Special Collections Access as Activities. You will receive an automated email when our staff have added you to the Activity for your session. Please navigate to the Activities tab in the system and ensure that the information is accurate. Once you have access to the Activity for your class visit, you can begin submitting item requests.

There are two ways to make requests, outlined below. Please ensure that you submit your materials well in advance of your session to ensure that they are ready when your class arrives. You can request up to 15 items for your class visit.

Item-by-item requests

You can submit item requests following the normal process for making research appointments. This approach works best when you are requesting a few items, or if you need to add additional materials to your Activity.

  1. Follow the instructions in the Request Details section on the Request Materials page.
  2. In the Schedule Appointment section of the request form, choose your Activity from the Request For dropdown menu.

Request for dropdown in Special Collections Access

You can repeat this process for each item you would like to request for your class visit.

Submit a spreadsheet

When you send your assigned staff member a spreadsheet with your item requests, they can automatically create a series of item requests for you. We recommend this approach when requesting more than 10 items, as manually submitting a large number of requests can become too time-consuming. Please submit your spreadsheet at least five business days before your class visit.

At minimum, the spreadsheet should contain the following information for each item:

  • Title
  • Call number
  • Copy specific requests (e.g. a specific copy, volume number, or journal issue)
  • Activity date

We may contact you if we need more details to complete any of your requests, such as volume- or copy-specific information.

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