Welcome Back! Fall 2020 Information and the COVID-19 Impact

Published Aug. 25, 2020
Updated Oct. 18, 2021

Students in Wurzburger Reading Room.

The Wurzburger Reading Room and the Design and the Arts Special Collections Reading Room welcome everyone back to campus for Fall ’20! After a sudden shift in Spring and a most strange summer break, all of us at the reading rooms want to let you know a few things about our services for Fall.

The ASU Library is complying with the health and safety protocols established by ASU that include social distancing and modified services.

The Wurzburger Reading Room is open to all by appointment only.

The Design and the Arts Reading Room is open by appointment as follows:

Monday – Friday: 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Researchers may request an appointment to access materials from our specialized collections including the Chicano(a) Research Collection, Child Drama Collection, Design and the Arts Special Collections, Greater Arizona Collection, Labriola National American Indian Data Center, Latin Americana Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and University Archives. Please request an appoint through Ask an Archivist. Because our collections are stored in a secure, offsite facility, we will need advanced notice to retrieve collections. Please request materials 5 days in advance.

Please visit ASU Library’s Updates & Support During Covid-19 Response and ASU’s Novel Coronavirus information page for more information.

Classes with Special Collections:

Our curators are delighted to introduce students to our collections. Although we are unable to host class visits like we normally do, we are working together to offer alternative ways to teach and to allow students to explore the books, manuscripts, zines, and other items to enrich their studies. We invite instructors who would like to provide their students with this type of instruction to contact any of the curators or submit a request through Ask and Archivist so that we can discuss different possibilities.

Online Resources:

Information for some of our collections is available on the websites for the Community-Driven Archives Initiative,  Distinctive Collections, the Labriola National American Indian Data Center, and University Archives. In addition, materials including rare books can be searched in the library catalog. Digital images for some collections are hosted in the ASU Digital Repository. Finding aids with detailed information for some archival collections are contained in Arizona Archives Online.

—​Julie Tanaka, Interim Head of Distinctive Collections