Reading Room Policies

• One form of photo ID must be presented upon registration.
• Researchers are allowed to bring laptops, notes, pencils (no ink), and paper into the reading room.
• All other items must be placed in the lockers provided.Phones must be turned off in the reading room.
• Eating and drinking are prohibited.Materials must remain in the reading room.
• Materials should be maintained in the order in which they are received by the researcher.
• Researchers are allowed to have only one box of materials on the table at a time.  All other boxes must be stored on the carts provided.
• There is no self-service photocopying available in the reading room. Personal scanners are not permitted. Use of digital or smartphone cameras is permitted.

Research Assistance

Special Collections is located on the first floor of Hodges Library, one floor below Circulation and the Commons, and one floor above the Volunteer Blvd entrance. Special Collections is open to all interested researchers.  Materials do not circulate and may be viewed in the Special Collections reading room during open hours.  Manuscript collections and University Archives materials are stored off-site and require advance notice.  Materials requested before 3.00pm will be available the following business day at 9.00am.  Materials requested after 3.00pm will be available two business days later at 9.00am.

Many materials can be located through the library catalog.  Finding aids containing descriptions of manuscripts and University Archives collections are available. Many primary documents in Special Collections have been digitized and can be read on-line.  Finding aids and digitized items are available through SCOUT (Special Collections Online at UT) at: http://dlc.lib.utk.edu/spc/search.  Digital collections can be found at http://digital.lib.utk.edu/.

A tutorial explaining how to use Scout is available below

A few frequently used collections are kept in Hodges, including AR.0015 (Office of the University Historian Collection) and AR.0018 (University of Tennessee Photograph and Slide Collection).

Access to subject-specific research guides are available at http://libguides.utk.edu/.

For additional assistance, contact special@nullutk.edu.