One of the joys of browsing the Library stacks is when you come across that unexpected discovery, when you walk in looking for one book and find others in the same area that end up being critical to your research. Wouldn’t it be great if you could browse the library stacks from wherever you are, whatever the time of day?

Well, you can! When you click on a title in Virgo and scroll to the end of the record, you will see a row of thumbnails images or, in some cases, placeholder images showing adjacent titles in that call number range with their location — all on one virtual shelf!

For instance, a Virgo search for the title “Graphic Novels: Everything you Need to Know” gives you the following display, making it easy to scroll through and bookmark interesting titles by clicking the bookmark icon in the lower right corner of the thumbnail display.

These thumbnails, however, don’t just replicate what you would see while browsing in the stacks; they also show the titles you would NOT see in a physical library. On the virtual shelf you’ll find:

• E-book titles you can easily access through Netbadge.
• PDFs of public domain material from the HathiTrust Digital Library that you can download and keep forever.
• Rare, non-circulating titles in the Small Special Collections Library that you can use in the Special Collections Reading Room.
• Infrequently used titles which are housed in Ivy Stacks and can be requested with the click of a button.

And although the Library is taking every precaution to ensure the safety of visitors in this time of COVID, it’s comforting to know it’s also possible to browse the stacks remotely.