Libraries
Lehigh University has two major library facilities, Linderman Library and Fairchild-Martindale Library, plus a Library Materials Center (LMC) on Mountaintop Campus.
The Lehigh University Libraries offer students, faculty, and staff access to an extensive range of top tier research electronic journals, electronic books, and full text and image databases easily accessible from on and off campus. The Libraries optimize network-level collaborations and partnerships between research libraries in Pennsylvania, its neighboring states, and the nation, to maximize the availability of resources to Lehigh users. Lehigh Libraries holds an extensive digitization program and supports an open access repository, readily available for faculty, student, and community-based research.
Linderman Library
The historic Linderman Library is a showcase for Lehigh’s history and heritage and includes much of our Humanities and Art collections. Its world-renowned 1878 high Victorian rotunda and 1929 grand reading room have long conveyed magnificence. A major renovation in 2005 and more recent updates in 2022 provide additional seminar rooms, research spaces, group study rooms, and high-speed wireless throughout the building.
Linderman Library houses Lehigh Libraries’ Special Collections with an impressive collection of rare books, including Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and John James Audubon’s double elephant folio edition of Birds of America, as well as deep heritage collections which represent the intellectual and administrative life of the Lehigh campus from its foundation. Researchers can have hands-on experience with these materials by appointment in the renovated Special Collections and Instruction Reading Room located at the Linderman Bayer Galleria.
Fairchild-Martindale Library
The modern and dynamic Fairchild-Martindale Library (FML) offers immersive and collaborative learning spaces, experimental classrooms, areas for individual or group work or study, and The Grind@FML cafe as well as a recently renovated art exhibition gallery. In 2023 the library opened the CIRCLE (Community & Inclusion Resource Center: A Library for Everyone), a space to support inclusivity and diversity across the campus and as a bridge to connect people and ideas with resources in a shared, inclusive space. The Fairchild-Martindale Library holds print books and journals in all branches of science, engineering, mathematics, and the social sciences, including business and education, as well as a leisure reading collection. Throughout FML, students can find a variety of facilities for printing and scanning within the constraints of copyright. In the libraries are public scanners and microform readers that support image capture to network or portable drives.
The Help Desk in Fairchild-Martindale Library provides both library and technology assistance to the Lehigh community via walk-up, phone, email, text, and chat. The Help Desk is open during business hours as well as evenings and weekends to assist with computing, networking, software, library research, and more. Students can borrow laptops (up to one week) and chargers here. Behind the Help Desk, students can find Student Technology and Repair Services (STARS), which provides technical consulting on student personal devices.
Fairchild-Martindale Library hosts and partners with Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) and Information Technology Services (ITS) to offer technologically enhanced and engaging spaces throughout the library, including two technology classrooms outfitted for flexible and collaborative learning, the Lehigh Emerging Technologies (LETs) Lab, a TRAC Writing Fellows consultation area, the Digital Media Studio classroom, and numerous public site computers available to the community.
The libraries and most computing facilities are open seven days per week and for evening hours during the fall and spring semesters. The Computing Center is open 24 hours during fall and spring. During final exams, the Fairchild-Martindale Library is open around the clock.
Student Employment
Student assistants are essential for the operation of the Libraries. We provide hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students with real-world, hands-on opportunities to explore their areas of interest, discover their passions, and build professional skills that complement classroom learning.
Student employees gain and develop a broad range of competencies including scholarly research, library science, and digitization, as well as leadership, problem-solving, customer service, collaboration, and communication skills. Students can learn more about work opportunities at the job fair, held each fall, and on the LTS Student Employment webpage.
Organizationally, the Libraries are part of the division of Arts & Libraries.
