Accessibility

If you have a campus parking permit and a handicapped parking permit, you can park in any campus lot, regardless of your role.

The lots closest to the library are:

• Lot 31, which is between Penfield Library and Marano Campus Center.
• Lot 1, which is near the lake and across the street from Penfield Library and Lanigan Hall.

If you are not a current student, faculty, or staff member, you can purchase a visitor's parking pass on the SUNY Oswego Parking website. 

Penfield Library has two sets of automatic doors:

• at the main entrance to the library on the quad (south) side of the building.
• at the west entrance to the 24-Hour Room, facing Lanigan Hall.

Our elevator is located toward the back (north) side of the building, past the stairs. 

To check for campus elevator outages, please visit the Facilities Services page.

Wheelchair-accessible gender-inclusive restrooms are located:

• on the first floor, between the EOP office and the women's restrooms.

Wheelchair-accessible women's restrooms are located:

• in the 24-Hour Room.

Wheelchair-accessible men's restrooms are located:

• in the 24-Hour Room.
• on the first floor, near the computer lab and across from the Technology Assistance desk.
• in the basement of the library (toward the right when exiting the elevator).

A water bottle filling station is available in the 24-Hour Room space near the women's restroom. Wheelchair-accessible drinking fountains are available on the first floor of the library near the women's and men's restrooms. A second filling station is available near the men's restroom, across from the Technology Assistance desk.

Most study spaces in open areas (on all floors of the library) are wheelchair-accessible. These can be used by groups or individuals.

Most of our spaces for groups are wheelchair-accessible:

• Rooms 122, 200, 204, and 300 (these rooms can be reserved online).
• IGLUs - these are 2 semi-enclosed spaces on the first floor toward the back of the building. They contain a table, several chairs, and a large screen TV. They also have whiteboards that are part of the wall paneling.
• Open study spaces (on all floors of the library).

We also have individual spaces that are wheelchair-accessible:

• Study carrels (one on the second floor, one on the third floor). See our study carrels page for more information. 

All computers located on the first floor are wheelchair-accessible. Two of these computer stations can be adjusted for height. All stations have access to screen reading and screen magnification software.

There are some computer stations intended primarily to provide access to the library catalog. These stations are height-adjustable. The library catalog can also be accessed from any Internet-connected device. 

While many of our materials are easily accessible to those with mobility aids, there are some spaces that may present challenges. We are working to widen our aisles, but some of the aisles on the third floor may be too narrow for wheelchairs or other mobility aids. 

There are a few options for retrieving items from the collection:

• If you need an item on the same day, please call or visit the Check-Out & Reserves Desk. 
• You can also place a hold and have our staff retrieve the item or items for you. Items are usually ready for pick-up within 1-3 business days. 

Most of the digital content that the library offers is provided through third-party vendors. We review products' accessibility features and challenges, and this factors into our decisions to purchase the product. 

If you find digital content that does not meet your needs - for example, a PDF that cannot be read by your screen reading software - please contact our Electronic Resources Librarian ([email protected]).

The vast majority of our audiovisual materials have closed captioning available. This includes both our physical collections (DVDs & Blu-rays) and our streaming video collections. 

Our streaming video collections may have additional features. For example, the database Academic Video Online provides closed captions for all titles, and transcripts and audio descriptions for most. 

The library has 2 flatbed scanners located on the first floor; these can be used to magnify physical materials like books or class notes.

We also have a microform machine, which has zooming functions. 

If you need assistance with either the scanners or the microform machine, you can inquire at the Research Help Desk (also on the first floor). 

The library has two flatbed scanners located on the first floor. They have optical character recognition (OCR) technology, meaning they can "read" the text and convert it into a downloadable audio format. 

If you need assistance with a scanner, you can inquire at the Research Help Desk (also on the first floor).