Information for Students

The SFSU Library extends from the ground floor up to the fourth floor of the  J. Paul Leonard Library building on the Lake Merced campus. 

• Our first, second, and third floors are collaborative spaces where there’s often a hum of conversation. You can relax, study with a group, or attend an online class. 
• For a more peaceful environment, try our quiet study areas on the fourth floor and the ground floor. 
• The fifth and sixth floors of our building are home to the Sutro Library, part of the California State Library. 
• We have bulletin boards where our campus community can post flyers in the ground-floor hallway and near the second- and third-floor elevators (see policy).
• Learn more: Floor maps

All you need to use the Library is your OneCard or SFSU ID. Swipe your card or tap your mobile ID to check out books and other materials or to pay for printing and copies. 

• Learn more about borrowing and renewing library materials
• Learn more about printing in the Library

We can help!

To find information on your topic, we recommend searching for the topic or a few important keywords in OneSearch, which you can find near the top of our homepage. 

For a more focused search, choose one of our databases from a list of librarian-recommended options in our “Browse by Subject or Department” dropdown. 

Our Finding Articles quick-guide provides tips to help you get started.

You can choose how you want to get help with research for a paper or project. 

• Send us a question and we'll email you back, or chat with a librarian anytime for a quicker response. (Fun fact: our chat support is 100% human, even late nights and weekends!) 
• Make a one-on-one appointment to meet with a librarian on Zoom or at the Library. 

Our librarians have created tutorials and research guides full of helpful tips for doing research on various subjects and for specific courses.

• Learn more about research help options

There’s a mix of desktop PCs and Macs for students, faculty, and staff to use in our Quiet Study area, Collaboration Studio, and Digital Media Studio. Sign in with your SFSU ID number and Gateway password.

All three spaces also have printers. Printing costs 7 cents a page, which you can pay with your OneCard or mobile ID. 

Academic Technology provides a laptop checkout service for short-term and long-term student use. Their office is on the ground floor of the Library in LIB 80.

We have books, sheet music and records, magazines and journals, microforms, maps and atlases, SFSU theses and dissertations, films and videos, government publications, and more. 

Some are kept in storage rooms and some are out in the open for you to explore:

• Browse on the third and fourth floors and take anything you want to borrow to the Book Checkout & Pickup Desk or self-checkout station on the first floor. 
• Use OneSearch to find and request items stored in our automated Library Retrieval System (LRS), and then pick up your requests at the Book Checkout & Pickup Desk.
• For access to rare books and primary source material in Special Collections & Archives, visit the reading room on the fourth floor or send a question or request by email.

We have listening stations on the first floor to play vinyl records or audiocassettes/tapes, and viewing stations on the second floor to play DVDs or videocassettes/VHS tapes. Ask at the checkout desk to learn more!

As a student, you can use a large part of your Library’s resources anywhere, anytime. Remember to sign in to maximize your access!

We provide ebooks, online journals and scholarly articles, newspapers, streaming video, data, and digital images that you can find using OneSearch or other databases. 

Many professors place books, articles, and other materials on reserve for their classes to use for free in the Library or online. These are usually short-term checkouts so more students can benefit. Hardcopy reserves, such as books, are kept at the Book Checkout & Pickup Desk on the first floor. 

• Learn more about Course Reserves in the Library

If you have questions, stop by the desk, call us at (415) 338-1552, or ask a librarian! We're here to help.