Library staff members offer tours of the library, and library faculty members provide library instruction to individuals and groups upon request. Books and other materials in the library are identified and located through Illinet Online, an online catalog providing users with access to the library's collection and its holdings by author, title, keyword, and subject. Illinet Online also provides users with information on the holdings of the other 44 libraries that are members of the Illinois Library Computer System Organization. The library has more than seventy electronic databases in which users can search for full-text journal articles, as well as citations to articles, books and other materials, in a variety of subject areas related to the curriculum at Governors State University. The library's Web site serves as a gateway to these resources from both on and off campus.
Instructions are available on the Web pages and at the reference desk.
The library maintains an extensive collection of print, audiovisual, and electronic materials. These materials are, with few exceptions, available on open shelves, readily accessible to users. The library is a select depository for both United States and Illinois government documents, and staff members provide assistance in retrieving government information from the Internet. Books and journal articles that are not available in the Governors State University Library often can be obtained for students through interlibrary loan or cooperative networks. Users of the online catalog can initiate their own Interlibrary Loan requests from the other Illinet Online participants.