Hamersly Library is a member of the Orbis Cascade Alliance - a consortium of academic institutions who have agreed to share materials among each other. We refer to this system as 'Summit'. When you use the library catalog to place a 'Summit Request' for a book or material, you're specifically asking for it from one of our member institutions.
In addition to granting you access to Summit materials, your WOU-affiliation allows you to visit Summit libraries in person to check out physical materials. This is called the 'Summit Visiting Patron' service.
In order to become a 'Summit Visiting Patron', visit a participating institution's library with your WOU Student ID and ask to enroll as a visiting Summit patron (e.g. Chemeketa CC or Willamette University). After verification, the library will "adopt" you into their system and either grant you a guest library card, or have you use your WOU ID as such.
There is no limit to the number of institutions you can sign-up for. See the link below for a full map and list of member institutions.
Why become a 'Visiting Patron'?
Being a visiting patron allows you to directly go and checkout books or journals you may be interested in, without needing to go through the process of putting in a request for the item through WOU, then waiting for it to be delivered to you. As a Salem-campus student, it takes longer for library items to be transited to you from WOU, which may take up valuable time needed to digest and synthesize research materials for your own assignments.
Important Notes:
You will receive a guest patron account with login ID and password for that specific institution's library catalog. You'll need it to order materials for delivery to that library (see section below on "home" libraries).
Be aware of differences in operating hours and access limitations. For example, Willamette University uses a semester-system, which alters when their breaks & holiday closures occur.
Your living arrangements may make it difficult, or inconvenient, to come to WOU to pick up materials you order from other Summit library sites, and byeond. If so, you may consider using one of your visiting library sites as a quasi-home library. When you use the visiting library to order items, those materials will arrive at your visiting location instead of WOU.
There are a few considerations you must take:
You must use the visiting library's catalog to place requests. (i.e. requests made using Chemeketa's catalog will be delivered to Chemeketa; requests in WOU's system will be delivered to WOU)
When making requests, you'll use your login ID and password for that site. Your ID and password should've been setup when you registered as a visiting patron.
Only use the visiting library's catalog when you're making requests for physical materials. You only have access to electronic materials and database resources via WOU.
