If you are a member of the Stanford Alumni Association (SAA), call them at (650) 725-0692 and ask for a guest sponsorship. A guest account allows the guest only to connect a wireless computer to the wireless network and provides no other network rights or services.

Stanford’s licenses for electronic resources require us to limit access to current Stanford University faculty, staff, students and other authorized Stanford-affiliated users.

However, members of the Stanford Alumni Association now have access to selected Online Publication Databases through their SAA membership.

For questions about SAA Membership & using the online library databases:

Phone: (650) 725-0692
Email: membership@stanfordalumni.org
8am – 5pm PST, Monday – Friday

In September of 2007, a new media display was installed on the first floor of Green East adjacent to the Current Periodicals collections. The large device enclosed in plexiglass is a early two-inch VRX-1000 videotape recorder, the fourth such item ever produced. It was manufactured by the AMPEX corporation and purchased by CBS for use in their Television Broadcast Network in 1956. The artifacts of the AMPEX corporation are part of the Universities Special Collections.

Historical Collection of Ampex Corporation, 1944-1999.
Gift of Ampex Corporation.
Ampex Corporation was one of Silicon Valley's pioneering technology companies and, for over five decades, an industrial leader in magnetic recording and data storage. The collection, 577 linear feet in size, includes the artifacts of the former Ampex Museum of Magnetic Recording, an extensive photographic archive of more than two hundred thousand images, documentation and product files, and Ampex publications. These materials will provide scholars with a major resource in the history of audio and video recording technology and the early development of Silicon Valley.

Book appraisal services are not offered by the Stanford University Libraries, but staff members offer the following suggestions for getting the valuation of old books on your own:

• If you are in the San Francisco Bay area, here is a resource that our staff uses: The Brick Row Book Shop. The Brick Row Book Shop offers appraisal services of books, manuscripts and archives for numerous purposes: donation to educational institutions, replacement value for insurance coverage, division of property, establishment of a fair market value for sale, etc. There is a link on their site for Appraisals
• You can try this public site: AbeBooks.com. This Web site is an online marketplace for old books.
• Or you can show it to a book dealer. Any major yellow pages will list Books, Used & Rare.
• There are also a couple of good, general sites for analyzing the value of books. Bookride is an amusing site with lots of advice and links. ViaLibri has a search engine for checking about 20,000 book dealers worldwide.

The short answer is: not really. If you do a combined search and type under "fiction or literature" under subject and choose the format "recordings," you can see most of what Stanford has available. To search for a particular book, you can do a "combined search" in Socrates, and limit the format to "recordings." We have some poets and famous authors reading selections, but generally these are not in a format that circulates.

Public libraries generally have large audiobook holdings, and you can download audiobooks (though not for free) on sites such as Simply Audio Books and Audible.

Yes, you can get a Palo Alto Library Card and borrow from them. When you visit the Palo Alto Libraries, bring a photo ID and a piece of mail that you have received at Stanford as proof of residence (they will provide you a postcard to mail to yourself if you don't have any mail). There are 5 Palo Alto branches, and one is dedicated to children. Visit their website to search their catalog and get directions.

Yes, you can download books from ebrary. You'll first need to create an individual account within ebrary. Then, once you select a particular title, select the download option button.

In most cases you can download an image-only PDF file, which cannot exceed a 60-page print maximum. Since it's image-only, the file cannot be searched. The PDF is accessible on most computers and devices, including the Kindle, without additional software.

If you want to download the entire book, you must first install Adobe Digital Editions (available for free download online) and log in with your Adobe account (you'll need to create one if you don't already have one). You can then view the downloaded book in Adobe Digital Editions; the item will be checked out to you for a 14-day period. The item will be accessible on most computers and devices except the Kindle.

For off-campus access, the Download feature is available only through EZproxy.

If you've paged an item that's normally housed at SAL or SAL3, it will be held for you at the loan desk. Otherwise we do not hold DVDs or books that are currently in the stacks here at Green Library.

We don't have a fax machine for patrons. To send a fax, you'll need to go to the campus FedEx office:

FedEx Office
Location: Suite A200-A, 2nd Floor, Tressider Memorial Union
Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:00 am to 7:00 pm
Telephone: 650.723.3132
https://psg.kinkos.com/stanford/

Yes, you can set up an RSS feed from SearchWorks. You'll just need a feed reader (e.g., Google Reader) and a search you've run in SearchWorks.

You can find the directions to set up an RSS feed here. (Thanks to Ray Heigemeir of the Music Library!)