<p>I am moving to Cambridge in the coming months and intend to make use of MIT's (and perhaps Harvard's) libraries.</p>
<p>It would be helpful if I could obtain borrowing privileges at these libraries, however this is not essential for me because of the electronic privileges I have from alum status at another university.</p>
<p>My concern is merely with physically getting inside the library buildings at MIT. At my alma mater, it was routine for students to walk into any of the library (and other sorts of) buildings on campus without being stopped to show an ID; the libraries were basically open to public use (save for borrowing books). However, in doing research lately (as well as applying to graduate schools) I have discovered that some universities police the entrances of their libraries and do not allow persons to walk in, even to use a reading room, without presenting current ID to some authority. Others have policies on their websites stating that persons without campus IDs are not allowed in but the universities do not in practice actually check IDs of persons entering.</p>
<p>So, my question is: given what you know about campus culture at MIT, is it reasonable to expect to not have difficulties gaining entry to libraries as an 'independent researcher' (without an MIT ID)? Are all campus buildings and libraries equally strict?</p>
<p>I’ve been at MIT this summer and spent a lot of time in their Barker Library (the one in the dome).
The library is open to anyone with scholarly purposes. You can even use the computers.
If you want to get a printout/copy, you’ll need an Athena account. Although there is a machine that scans and sends the files to your email account.</p>
<p>Nobody asks for an ID, you can just pass thru. However without an MIT ID, you won’t be able to check out books and stuff. I’m not exactly sure about other MIT libraries but I think they had the same protocol too.</p>
<p>Getting into the library might be a little bit tricky as there is no lift directly from the ground to the library. You need to get to the top floor(with lift or stairs), do a little bit exploring and take the upstairs.</p>
<p>As long as you don’t get into places where it is dangerous for you or other people (like labs), nobody asks for an ID. This is pretty reasonable, as they don’t want you to hurt yourself or others or mess up some experiment. Other than this, you can just pretty much hang around anywhere in the campus.</p>
<p>^I thought, at least a few years ago, that you needed to show an MIT ID to get into Hayden (the School of Science library). Perhaps I am misremembering?</p>