Library Hours
The JKM Library is a closed-stacks library, and we operate strictly by delivery to the shared campus building at 5416 S. Cornell Ave, or through ILDS and RAILS to our partner libraries.
Our library catalog and electronic resources are always available with your OpenAthens login, and as long as the campus building is open, you can pick up or return books by the elevators on the 4th floor, across from the LSTC front desk.
Given our remote situation, staff hours are highly flexible, and adjust to meet seminary needs. Please see our staff contact page for more information about workdays, and schedule ahead when possible.
You can email us to arrange contact time either in person or over Zoom, even outside of those hours. However, since our staff is small, most of our work is done over email where possible. Please allow time for us to respond to your requests, but also remember to check back with us to make sure we got your request.
Library Access
We receive delivery of requested non-JKM books via ILDS twice a week at our off-campus facility, and deliver books to campus the same day as we process them in our offices. You will receive an email when a book you have requested has arrived and been placed on hold for you, and can usually pick it up that same afternoon. You can find more information about accessing JKM, and using our services, in our tutorials section.
If you have an active JKM Library account, you can request guest access to CTU's Bechtold Library, on the 5th floor at the top of the stairs. As a fellow I-Share library, they can look you up in our shared system, and add you to their catalog for local borrowing. Contact us at ihaveaquestion@jkmlibrary.org to make sure your account with us is in good standing first.
You can find the Bechtold Library's hours here. Please obey their policies, and respect their staff and facilities. No seminary library in the area is budgeted to serve two entire additional seminaries, and they have undergone their own downsizing to provide space to McCormick. More information about guest access to neighboring libraries can be found on our partner libraries page.
Becoming a Closed-Stacks Library
Once upon a time, we experimented with a closed-stacks arrangement for the sake of a planned early-2010s renovation of the library wing of 1100 E 55th St. We moved JKM's offices and circulation desk, as well as the reference collection and periodicals, into the 3rd floor of the adjacent classroom wing.
Jokingly referred to as "JKM-in-Exile" or JKMinex, this arrangement was the first time that we had operated by holding materials on request for local patrons from JKM's own collections. However, the arrangement was reverted when, in the wake of the economic collapse of '08–'09, it became clear that JKM would have to resume normal operations without the planned renovation.
Beginning in 2020, at the start of the COVID pandemic, we were forced to close the library wing to all patrons, and were ourselves restricted to only one staff member in the library at a time. The library returns bin and holds table by the campus main entrance became the primary point of access for book delivery and returns, and they have remained that ever since.
We stopped operating strictly as a closed-stacks library for COVID in 2021, though we would only gradually resume allowing access to the library to patrons from outside of McCormick and LSTC, following the policies maintained by the seminaries in their control over the building spaces and caution regarding the spread of airborne disease.
In May of 2023 we closed temporarily in order to accommodate the needs of our downsizing and move to a new space in Hyde Park. However, while local borrowing was suspended, we continued to encourage our patrons to make use of I-Share requests, and continued to operate on a daily basis receiving returns and delivering requested I-Share books to the holds table by the campus main entrance.
In August of 2023, our returns bin and holds table were transported to their new location, on the 4th floor of the newly-shared campus building at 5416 S. Cornell Ave. At the same time, our remaining collections had been moved and unpacked onto compact shelving in a climate-controlled archive vault nearby. Because of this, JKM is now a closed-stacks library.
By November of 2023, our library catalog was close enough to the actual content of our shelves, after the downsizing and move, to resume allowing local borrowing. We resumed delivering both JKM and I-Share books to the holds table, now in its new location in the shared campus building.
