Grace Doherty Library

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 158,000 volumes of books as well as 46,830 electronic journals, 55,500 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 replacement costs for the materials.

Reference and Instruction 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. Fines are levied when interlibrary loan books are overdue at the rate of $1.00 per day.

The library is open 100.5 hours weekly, providing a comfortable and inviting space for work, research, and reading. Students may reserve study rooms and seminar rooms on the Library home page.  A computer lab is available for student use. Laptops, chargers, video cameras, and other technologies are also available for checkout for short-term use.  A fax machine is 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. Alternatively, some of the more prominent materials have been digitized and are available online on the library’s Special Collections website.