This page describes how researchers with an Aeon account can request Special Collections rare books and published materials, and attach those requests to new or existing Reading Room appointments. Before making requests, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and members of the general public must create an Aeon account.
Reading Room appointments cannot be scheduled without a material request. Researchers must first know what book they want to see, and then request a date and time to view the material.
We require all patrons to create their Aeon account and request materials at least 5 days before their visit.
Questions about your account? Ask Special Collections.
1. Visit aeon.utulsa.edu and login to your Aeon account. Click on New Requests at the top of the page, which will take you to the Request Materials portal. Select the Book Request Form.
2. Next, in a separate tab or window, visit McFarlin Library's book catalog and search for the published material you'd like to request. It's always helpful to check the box for Special Collections and University Archives so the search results are narrowed to only show books located in the department.
3. Locate the book you're interested in, and click on the title to open the full catalog record and see more details about that book.
4. Scroll down the page until you see the Availability section, which has information about the book's shelving location, call number, and status.
5. Go back to the Aeon Book Request Form and begin copying and pasting information from the book catalog page into the request form page.
Make sure to include the full call number, which may have a name or other information at the end, to distinguish this particular copy from others in the collection. In the example here, the name Weaver means that this copy of Ulysses personally belonged to Joyce's patroness Harriet Shaw Weaver—if that information is missing from the request form, it could cause confusion or the wrong item to be pulled.
Notice also that the URL for the book catalog page is a required field in the request form. On the book catalog page, if you click on the Share button, the book catalog will create a clean link and a button to copy it to your clipboard.
6. Once you've filled out the book request fields, the form will look something like this:
Next, you'll continue on to the second step of attaching the book request to a new or existing Reading Room appointment. See instructions below for how to do that.
1. With the Book Request Form still open, scroll to the bottom of the page, where you'll find the Request Information section. Here, you can fill out any accessibility requests and add tags about your research (which are visible only to you). This is also where you'll request a Reading Room date and time.
Although the Reading Room field is a drop-down menu, McFarlin Special Collections has only one Reading Room to choose from.
2. If you are creating a new Reading Room appointment, you won't see anything in the Appointment drop-down menu. Instead, click the Schedule a New Appointment button to bring up the Reading Room calendar.
Notice that the calendar has red dates that are struck through. These are days when there are no Reading Room appointments available. In this example, the department is only closed on Saturdays and Sundays; however, there may be times during the workweek when the Reading Room is closed due to campus closures or staff time being reallocated elsewhere.
3. Select the date for your appointment either by typing the date (MM/DD/YYYY) into the box above the calendar, or by clicking on a white day in the calendar.
4. Select the length of your appointment. You can choose 30 minute increments up to 3 hours and 30 minutes. Please note that the Reading Room closes from 12pm to 1pm. If you plan to spend a full day in the Reading Room, you'll book two appointments: one for 3.5 hours in the morning, and one for 3.5 hours in the afternoon. There's no need to book multiple hourly appointments in a row unless you need to leave the library and come back later.
5. You have the option to give your appointment a name. This is only visible to you, and can help you organize multiple research appointments.
When you've completed the appointment form, it'll look something like this:
6. Click the "Create Appointment" button. The page will change to show new information in the Appointment drop-down menu.
Your request for a Reading Room appointment has been submitted, but keep this page open, because you have one more step to complete.
7. At the very bottom of the Book Request Form, click the "Submit Request" button. You'll be taken to the list of your Active Requests in your Aeon account, where you'll be able to see the status of your request and filter all your requests by any tags you added.
8. You'll receive an email from Special Collections staff confirming your appointment.
1. If you've already booked an appointment and want to see multiple books or published items during that time, fill out the New Book Request form with information from the book catalog, as in the instructions above.
2. When you get to the Request Information section of the form, you'll notice that the Appointment drop-down box should list all active appointments, and you can choose which appointment you'd like to associate with the item you're requesting.
3. Be sure to click the "Submit Request" button at the bottom of the page to complete your request.
