Charles Library, photo by Betsy Manning for Temple University

Welcome to the fall 2019 semester! While Temple University Libraries has a new Main Campus building (Charles Library, heard of it??!) and a new website, we are committed as ever to getting you the materials, resources, and expert help you need as you start a new academic year at Temple!

First off, we hope you’ll stop by the new Charles Library building, where you’ll find a variety of specialized and flexible spaces. Explore all the cool things you can do in the new Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio, including 3D printing and experimenting with virtual reality. Watch the BookBot in action, grab a snack at the new cafe, then stay up all night in the 24/7 study area. There’s so much more to this state-of-the-art building—come see us in person! 

If you want to learn more about Charles Library, we’ll be offering tours from 9:00 am–4:00 pm as well as a staffed info table the first two weeks of the semester. No need to register: just stop by and get to know your new library.

Once you’ve scoped out your syllabi, head over to our comprehensive Research Guides for each of your course subjects, as well as our How Do I…? guides for help with basic tasks and services. 

Or maybe you are looking for new ways to learn or spend an afternoon? Check out the Libraries’ Beyond the Page public programming series for a variety of free programs, concerts, workshops, and more, many of which will take place in Charles Library’s new event space. 

Here are a few more tips to help you start the new school year off right:

• Use our Library Search to discover books, ebooks, articles, digital collections, databases, and much more.
• Discover who the Subject Librarian is for each of your courses and use our Contact Us page to get in touch.
• Take advantage of the Libraries’ laptop lending program and charging options, and look into Temple’s Print on the Go service for all your printing needs.

On Monday, August 19, 2019, Temple University Libraries will launch a new website culminating two years of work and research. The timing of this launch is paired with the opening of the new Charles Library. This new environment serves to enhance discovery of library resources, and promote the use of services and amenities both online and within our walls. The last time the libraries’ website received a major overhaul was about seven years ago, in 2012.

An overarching goal of the website redesign and restructuring was to create a consistent look across all of our web platforms. Last summer, we launched our new Library Search as the first step in this process. Launching the new website on an open source and flexible platform is the second step. The new website will have a seamless integration with Library Search, and website content will be discoverable alongside book, article and database information.

We also continue to build out Library Search as we prepare for the changes to how users will navigate our collections. This will include the option to retrieve items from the BookBot and to browse our collections in the order that they would have appeared in the old stacks.

We sought to build a website that incorporated input and feedback from all of the communities that we serve. Over the course of the project, we conducted several in-person user-testing sessions with library patrons as they passed through the halls. We also did an online survey and looked at web analytics for our most popular pages.

A project of this scope has an impact that will reverberate throughout our community, and we are committed to persisting links to library resources. We thank you for your patience with this development, and we look forward to working with you into the future.