Library Services and Policies
The librarians of The Grace Doherty Library seek to maintain an atmosphere conducive to study, collaborative learning, and research.
Students have full access to the collection and services of the library. The Grace Doherty Library offers Centre College students, faculty, and staff access to more than 375,000 volumes of books and periodicals as well as 28,000 electronic journals, 32,000 electronic books, and a wide variety of scholarly databases. Students have remote access to all online research tools.
All patrons present a current Centre I.D. card in order to check out books. Students are responsible for returning library materials when due. Failure to do so will result in overdue fines.
Fines are:
- Books: $.10 per book per day.
- Interlibrary loan books: $1.00 per day
- Open and Closed reserve materials: $.25 per hour per item.
- DVDs and CDs: $1.00 per day per item.
- Laptop computers: $2.50 per hour.
- Power cords: $2.50 per hour.
The Reference Librarians offer classroom research instruction, as well as personalized, individual instruction and a chat reference service. Reference Librarians also provide online research guides that are developed for specific courses or subject areas.
The library provides subsidized interlibrary loan so that Centre College students, faculty, and staff have access to materials owned by other libraries and institutions of learning and research.
The library is open 104 hours weekly, providing a comfortable and inviting space for work, research, and reading. Students may reserve study rooms and a viewing/presentation room, where they may watch a film or practice a presentation, on the Library home page. A computer lab is available for student use and laptops are also available for checkout. Fax machines are available at Doherty Library and the cost is $1.00 per page.
The library houses the Thomas A. Spragens Special Collections and Rare Book Room which includes a collection of rare books and the Centre College archives. These collections are available to students, faculty and staff by appointment with the Archivist. Alternately, some of the more prominent materials have been digitized and are available online at the library’s Special Collections website.