Library Annex services are available at no cost to faculty members, currently-enrolled students, university staff, current members of the Friends of University Libraries and current members of the UofSC Alumni Association.

Persons affiliated with the School of Medicine, Law School or other institutions within the University of South Carolina system may request items from the Library Annex provided the requested item belongs to their respective library. To borrow items not belonging to your respective library, please consult your Interlibrary Loan department.

Non-affiliates may request Thomas Cooper Library materials. Please see the Circulation Desk for assistance.

Materials housed at the Library Annex for USC special libraries must be approved and requested by a library staff member as instructed in the online catalog record.

The owning library determines the circulation category of stored items. Three circulation categories have been defined for stored library materials.

Circulating

Items which may be charged to patrons and removed from the library. Most items will be shipped to the Thomas Cooper Library Circulation Department. The books will be checked out according to existing policies for like items in the Thomas Cooper Library. 

Onsite Use

Items which must be used onsite at Thomas Cooper Library within their respective department, such as: Special Collections, Map Library Collection and Educational Films Collection. These items will be delivered to their corresponding departments.

Restricted Delivery

Items which must be used onsite at the owning library, such as: South Caroliniana Library, the Law Library and the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. These items will be delivered to the owning library. All Library Annex requests for items belonging to the South Caroliniana Library must be submitted through the department's library representative.

All Electronic Desktop Deliveries are subject to Federal Copyright Guidelines determined by U.S. Copyright law, Title 17, Copyrights, United States Code section 107. Federal Copyright Guidelines require that only one article or book chapter be requested per request.

• This service is available at no cost to faculty members, currently-enrolled students, university staff, members of the Friends of University Libraries, members of the UofSC Alumni Association and non-university affiliates.
• This service is also available at no cost to persons affiliated with the Law School and the university's system campuses; however, this is solely for items housed at the Library Annex which belong to their respective library. For Electronic Desktop Delivery of items not belonging to your respective library, please contact your Interlibrary Loan department.
• All article and book chapter requests are delivered directly to your desktop through Scan and Deliver. You will receive an email containing instructions on how to download and view the electronically received article. Articles are delivered in PDF format and can be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader, available at no cost from Adobe.
• Articles are accessible for 30 days (including weekends and holidays). If you mistakenly delete an article during that time, please contact the Library Annex or the Scan and Deliver department to have the article reinstated. To save electronically delivered articles, open the article using Adobe. Select "Save a Copy," specify where you want the article saved, and name the file. After saving the article, you may view it using Adobe Acrobat.
• Staff will process requests for articles or book chapters of 50 or fewer pages in length. All requests for articles in excess of 50 pages must be made for the entire volume, which will then be sent to the Thomas Cooper Library and made available for pick up.

A photocopy machine is available at the Library Annex. The cost is $.10 per page. Please note this copier does not accept cash, CarolinaCards or CarolinaCash. Any charges will be applied directly to your university account.

Library Annex services are provided free of charge. Library Annex materials are subject to overdue fines or replacement charges which are associated with the circulation policies of the owning library.

The 19,000-square-foot building includes:

• 2,300-square-foot preservation lab
• Two research/reading rooms
• Conference room
• 3,700-square-foot processing, shipping and receiving area
• Three offices and five workstations
• Staff lounge
• High density storage known as "The Box." The area, which is 50 feet wide by 200 feet long by 38 feet high, has 304 shelving units with 9,424 shelves for a total of 380,000 cubic feet of shelf space. That's a capacity of about 1.5 million volumes. Materials are stored at 50° Fahrenheit and 40 percent relative humidity.
• Annex has space for two more storage boxes if needed.

Reading rooms are available by appointment.

Reading rooms are equipped with WiFi, a desktop computer, a 13-inch TV, VCR/DVD player, record player and microfilm/microfiche reader scanner.

Procedures

• University affiliates including faculty, staff, graduate or undergraduate students, Friends of University Libraries members, and Alumni Association members can consult large works by requesting that items be held at one of the two reading rooms.  
• Non-university affiliates can also consult large works by requesting that the items be held at one of the two reading rooms. Photocopy services may be limited for non-university affiliates. Consult Library Annex management for full details.
• If you wish to view the material onsite, please select “Library Annex – Columbia” as your Pickup/Ship to Location.
• Please provide information for requested materials at least two hours in advance so library staff can have the materials ready when you arrive. Walk-in requests will be placed into the work queue and processed by priority. In such case, you will have to wait for the retrieval to be carried out.
• Please contact the Library Annex at 803-896-0780 to verify availability and to reserve a reading room.