Borrowing: Borrowing from Rasmuson Library

Students, staff, and faculty of UAF, UAA, and UAS are eligible to borrow materials with a valid PolarExpress Card (UAF), Wolf Card (UAA), or Whale Card (UAS).

Off-campus & rural UAF students, staff, and faculty are eligible to borrow materials using our Interlibrary Loan service.

If you are an Alaska resident and your public library belongs to the Alaska Library Catalog (ALC) consortium, you may check out materials with your public library card. You must be in good standing with your home library.

If you are an Alaska resident, but your home library is not a member of the ALC, you may be eligible to borrow a limited number of items through the Alaska Libraries Reciprocal Borrowing Program; check with a supervisor at the Circulation Desk for further details.

The instructions below are for borrowing books, videos, and other physical materials from the library. If you are a visiting/affiliate researcher who needs off-campus access to the library's databases, you will need to set up a UA account. Your host department can help you with this.

If you are not employed by the University of Alaska, but are affiliated with a campus department doing research either on campus or with other campus researchers, in order to be eligible to check out materials you will need to obtain a PolarExpress card (or Courtesy Card) and have your sponsoring department fill out the Visiting Guest Scholar Sponsorship form.

Once the form is filled out (we need your departmental address as well as your home permanent address, as well as the date your contract ends), you may check out books, check out audiovisual-format material, and use our Interlibrary Loan service.

This privilege does not include the use of our media equipment; departments should contact the Rasmuson Library Media Desk if there is a special need for such equipment.

• Books: 28 days; There is no limit to the number of books you may checkout
• Compact Discs: 7 days; can check out up to 25
• Films, DVDs, & Videotapes: 7 days; can check out up to 10
• Media Equipment: 3 days, except for data projectors which circulate for 4 hours

• Books: 60 days; There is no limit to the number of books you may checkout
• Compact Discs: 7 days; can check out up to 25
• Films, DVDs, & Videotapes: 7 days; can check out up to 10
• Media Equipment: 3 days, except for data projectors which circulate for 4 hours

• Books: 120 days; There is no limit to the number of books you may checkout
• Compact Discs: 7 days; can check out up to 50
• Films, DVDs, & Videotapes: 7 days; can check out up to 10
• Media Equipment: 3 days, except for data projectors which circulate for 24 hours

• Books: 60 days; There is no limit to the number of books you may checkout
• Compact Discs: 7 days; can check out up to 25
• Films, DVDs, & Videotapes: 7 days; can check out up to 10
• Media Equipment: 3 days, except for data projectors which circulate for 4 hours

• Books: 28 days; There is no limit on the number of books you may checkout
• Compact Discs: 7 days; can check out up to 25
• Films, DVDs, & Videotapes: 7 days; can check out up to 10
• Media Equipment: No media checkout except for headphones and video remotes, in-library only

Are you positive it's lost? The fees mentioned below are non-refundable, so, if you need a little more time to look, we can extend your checkout.

After an item is 4 weeks overdue, a lost item will suspend your borrowing privileges, and you will need to return or replace it before borrowing anything more. After it is 8 weeks overdue, we will mark it as "lost" and will charge you for the replacement.

We charge a $10 processing fee for each lost or damaged item. (This covers our costs of cataloging and physical processing.)

Then you may either:

• Ask the Library to find the replacement cost of the item, and then you may pay that amount to the library. (Be aware that, as of 2021, the cost of the average new academic library book is almost $100.) OR,
• If you cannot wait for the Library to find the cost of replacement, pay us a non-refundable amount of $110 (includes the processing fee). If we find that the item's replacement cost is more than $110, we will bill you for the difference within 30 days.
• Materials from the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections are often rare and difficult to replace. Lost items from these collections will incur a flat replacement fee of $110. Oversized items will incur a flat fee of $160. In lieu of this fee, a replacement copy in good condition may be accepted at the library's discretion. However, a non-refundable $10 processing fee will still apply in all such cases.

Fines will be dismissed (and refunded, except the $10 processing fee) if the item is returned in good condition no more than a year after it is marked "lost." After that, the fines will not be reduced, and we will not accept a replacement copy.

If returned in good condition there is no charge for overdue items, excluding media equipment or reserves.

Overdue equipment accrues fines at the rate of $1.00 per hour (or any fraction of an hour) and may result in permanent loss of equipment checkout privileges. See the Technology Lending Overdue Policy for details.

Overdue reserve materials accrues fines at the rate of .50 cents per hour, starting at the top of the hour after the item is overdue.