Resources for Students

The Divinity School Library is one of the Duke Professional School Libraries. Although it is located within the Duke Divinity School, it serves as the primary religion collection for the entire Duke University community.

Your Duke ID card is your Divinity Library card. Read more about adding your DukeCard to your mobile device.

Loan Periods

Students must present their mobile Duke ID cards at the circulation/reserves desk to check out materials from the library. Books on Reserve for Divinity courses have a 3-hour loan period, and a maximum of two reserve books can be checked out at any one time. Books in the regular circulating collection have semester loans for all graduate students, including Divinity and Religion, and 4-week loans for undergraduates.

Renewals

Books may be renewed in person, by calling the circulation desk (919-660-3450), or online using My Accounts. Please note that books that have been recalled by another patron cannot be renewed.

Fines

Late books from the Reserve collection accrue fines at the rate of $0.50 an hour. Recalled books accrue fines at a rate of $3 a day. Duke Libraries will email patrons with a courtesy notice when a book's due date approaches, and overdue notices when the due date has passed. Once a book is 28 days overdue, it ages to "Lost" and patrons are assessed a $100 replacement fee and a $25 processing fee. Unpaid library fines are sent to the Bursar's Office.

 

Printing with ePrint

The Divinity Library also has two ePrint machines (one outside the entrance and one in the circulation area. You can send documents to these print stations using MyPrintCenter. 

  • Log into MyPrintCenter
  • Use the "upload" button to select the document you want to print (up to 50MB)
  • You can change the following print options:
    • Single- or double-sided
    • Number of pages per sheet (1 page or 2 pages per side)
    • Number of copies
  • Find an ePrint machine and swipe or tap your DukeCard or DukeMobile ID 
  • Select your job from the print queue that appears on the printer screen and click on the Print button.

The ePrint system's software can also be downloaded to your personal computer. Hybrid students who are on Duke's campus more frequently than during immersion weeks may benefit from downloading ePrint software. Learn more about ePrint here.

Printers and scanners

The Divinity Library has two black and white ePrint stations (one outside the library entrance, and one across from the circulation desk). You may print to these printers with your own computer (download ePrint software) or from the library's public computers (log in with your NetID and password). The Divinity Library also has public scanners that can save scanned files to a flash drive or send them over email. For more information, here is a guide to the various printers, copiers, and scanners in the library.

More information about computing on campus

Security

Students are reminded that although we are a seminary library, the Divinity Library is open to the larger University and the public. Please do not leave any belongings unattended. We cannot guarantee the safety of items that are left unmonitored.

Zoom Pods

Do you need a quiet space to take a Zoom call or participate in an online class or meeting? The Divinity Library has five "Zoom Pods" upstairs on our BQ-BR level. Students can check availability and book time in a pod online using our reservations page.

Library Classrooms

The Divinity School Library has two seminar classrooms: the Baker Methodist Research Center (on the main floor) and the Library Seminar Room (094, on the BX level). Both rooms are available as reading rooms when they are not reserved. Divinity classes have priority for reservations. Contact Lacey Hudspeth with questions and reservation requests.

Study Carrels

Open Carrels: Most seating is open seating and is available each day on a first come, first served basis. Library Books found in study carrels will be reshelved each evening. Again, please do not leave belongings unattended in the library.

Assigned Carrels: The Divinity Library has a limited number of desks/study carrels that are available for assignment to doctoral students from the ThD Program and the PhD Program in Religion. Occupancy is for two years, renewable for a third year. Contact Dr. Benjamin with questions about the carrel waitlist.

Interlibrary Requests (ILR) assists scholarly research by obtaining library materials. Document delivery locates needed materials in other libraries, borrows books and microforms and obtains photocopied/scanned material on behalf of eligible Duke patrons. See the Interlibrary Requests page for more information and forms for submitting requests.

A reciprocal borrowing program is an agreement between institutional libraries where students/faculty from one school can register for library privileges at another school. Duke Divinity School Library is a member of three such programs: TRLN, Borrow Direct (the Ivy Plus Confederation), and Atla.

TRLN

Duke University Libraries, together with the libraries of North Carolina Central University (NCCU), North Carolina State University (NCSU), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), participate in a cooperative library lending agreement called the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN). Faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students may obtain borrowing privileges at the other participating libraries.

Borrow Direct

The Ivy Plus Confederation includes the libraries of Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Chicago. Duke faculty, staff, and students may present their DukeCard to obtain borrowing privileges at these Borrow Direct/Ivy Plus libraries.

Atla

The Atla Reciprocal Borrowing Program connects over 125 theological libraries in North America. Duke Divinity students can set up accounts to check out books at other Atla libraries, and patrons whose home library is in the Atla RBP network can set up accounts to check out books at Duke Divinity Library. Here is a map and a spreadsheet of participating libraries. Read more about the Atla Reciprocal Borrowing Program.

submitting your divinity thesis to proquest

University Policy

Prior to graduation, doctoral students at Divinity (i.e., DMin and ThD students) must electronically submit their thesis or dissertation to ProQuest, from which it makes its way to DukeSpace the following semester. This mandate is a university-wide policy binding all doctoral students at Duke University. 

Access to your ETD (electronic thesis / dissertation)

ProQuest is an online repository used by universities throughout the world to make known and available the graduate research of their students. DukeSpace is a Duke repository that is open access, meaning that the theses and dissertations therein are freely available and open to the public. 

Open access to a student’s thesis or dissertation does not affect the student’s copyright or ownership of its content. At the same time, Duke’s general recommendation is that a student should register copyright of their thesis or dissertation, which can be done directly through the federal Copyright Office website. Whether you register through the Copyright Office or not, once your work is published to ProQuest/DukeSpace, your thesis or dissertation will be much harder to improperly appropriate without credit to you.

Embargo requests

Divinity students in particular may have concerns regarding this process, given that they sometimes wish to publish their thesis or dissertation. Divinity doctoral students sharing this concern can place a temporary embargo on their work so that it is not discoverable on ProQuest or DukeSpace for a period of time.

If a student would like to select a 6-month, 1-year, or 2-year embargo for their work, they must do so during the submission process! It is easier to remove an embargo than it is to place one after a thesis has been submitted to ProQuest/DukeSpace. If a student thinks there is the slightest chance that they might want or need an embargo, they should go ahead and request one at the time of the submission process. Once in place, an embargo can also be extended, for a maximum of five years.

  • To request an extension of your dissertation's embargo on ProQuest, contact ProQuest support.
  • To request an extension of your dissertation's embargo on DukeSpace, email academics@div.duke.edu six weeks before your embargo is set to expire. Include the following information:
    • your full name and current email address
    • the title of your thesis/dissertation 
    • your graduation year

Publication on ProQuest and DukeSpace is your work’s official entry into the academic record. Work is typically only withdrawn from the academic record for reasons of plagiarism or other academic malpractice. 

Bound Dissertations

Duke University no longer keeps bound paper copies of doctoral theses and dissertations in its library systems. Therefore, the move to ETDs (electronic theses and dissertations) allows for continued access to these resources via the University’s library systems. Within DukeSpace, the thesis or dissertation will have a unique URL (which can be placed on a CV and shared with potential employers), appear on the library catalog with a description, and be indexed through public search engines, thereby increasing its visibility and availability to a worldwide, scholarly audience.

Students wishing a bound copy of their thesis or dissertation can either request one through ProQuest or bring a paper copy to a commercial print shop for binding.

helpful links

Submit your dissertation using this link: ProQuest Submit Divinity Thesis

Divinity Thesis Guidelines: Forms and Style Guides for Divinity Masters and Doctoral Theses

DukeSpace: See examples of Divinity Theses and Dissertations on DukeSpace

ProQuest: Search for dissertations from Duke and other institutions using ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global

Still have questions about submitting your thesis? More information about Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)