The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a growing consortium of college and university libraries in Oregon and Washington. (Click here to see a full list of Orbis Cascade Alliance members) SPU's membership in the Alliance provides current students, faculty and staff access to more than 22 million books and other monographs in the combined collections. 

You may search for Alliance owned materials directly by going to Summit the Orbis Cascade Alliance catalog, or indirectly by searching the SPU Library Catalog.  After you have completed a search in the SPU Library catalog there is a button at the top of the results page that says "Search Summit" clicking this will execute the same search just done in the SPU catalog in the Summit.

Borrowing materials from Orbis Cascade Alliance Libraries:
Summit Borrowing is the system that allows you to request items owned by other Alliance libraries.  When you find an item that you want to borrow in Summit, simply follow the on-screen instructions, starting with "Request this Item."  The system will ask you for your name and your barcode.  The system will let you know right away if the item is available for borrowing. 

When you enter you name and barcode you will also have an opportunity to request that the item be sent to any Orbis Cascade Alliance Library.  For example, if you live in Tacoma, you may prefer to have your items sent to UW Tacoma or UPS for pickup.  The form is defaulted to send items to the SPU Circulation Desk.

Requested items will be sent via courier and usually arrive within 3 days.  Once the item has been received you will be sent an email notifying you of the book's arrival. (or you may check your patron record for the status of your requests.) You will then have 7 days to pick up the item from the Circulation Desk.

Member institutions of the Alliance have adopted standard policies and procedures to assure uniform and fair handling of all requests.  All member institutions have made a commitment to rapid delivery and a standard loan period of six weeks (while renewals are not available) for most items. Some special items such as videos may only circulate for 3 days.   Fines for late or lost materials are charged to students, staff and faculty.  Alliance overdue fines are usually $0.50 per day for the first 10 days, then $1.00 per day for the next 15 days.  Currently renewals are not available as we transition to new software for Summit borrowing.

Check out materials directly from other Orbis Cascade Alliance Libraries:
As a current SPU faculty, staff or student you are welcome at any of the Alliance member libraries.  You will need to be adopted by the other library the first time you visit.   The circulation worker at the other institution will have you log into your SPU patron record and then use the information show there to create a record in their system.  Please be aware that when you check an item out directly from another member library you will not receive a courtesy reminder about the due date from SPU and, as always, you are responsible for returning the item on or before its due date to any Alliance member library.

If you would like to have Summit Borrowing items delivered to you at another institution you will need to be "adopted" (see above) and then request summit items as if you are one of their students.

If you have questions about the library services that are available to you from the Orbis Cascade Alliance, please contact the Circulation Desk at (206) 281-2228 or email: circ@spu.edu

rev. 11/24/2008