Ok first thing first, I'm not a sysadmin. I'm just an undergrad with duck tape and google searches to hold this place together. Anyways on to my question. Where I work, we have a tape library but no way to configure it, the backup software simply talks to the robot to load and unload tapes. There is a network port on the library and I do have the software, but have been running into problems getting access. I was wondering, is there a way to determine the ip address of this machine by plugging in a cross over cable with a laptop and scanning it? What tools could I use to do this?

better still see if it has a RS232 port. If it has one take a RS232 cable and try connecting it with ur machine... it may help.
If you put a cross over cable you still wouldn't know the IP address of this box... right?

If it were me I would take an empirical approach and just connecto the laptop to the Server with an ethernet cable and see if the laptop pulls an IP address and a default gateway. The default gateway would be the IP address of the server.
there has to be documentation on the tape server box with instructions on connection and configuration.

Of course, if we had more information, we could provide more useful answers. For example, what kind of tape library? What kind of server is it connected to, and by what means? And what kind of backup software?

Also, what exactly is it that you want to configure? If the backup software can address it and load tapes, then what else is it that you need?

Assuming it is a SCSI connected library on a Linux server, mt and mtx (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx) can do pretty much everything that is normally needed from the command line. These are the tools that open source backup software uses (Amanda and Bacula).

If you are wanting to do things like firmware upgrades, then that may require either a utility from the vendor to do it "in band", i.e. over the SCSI connection, or it may have some mechanism through a web interface when it has a network connection.

There is most probably a front panel that can be used for some configuration. It could be that you can configure the IP address from the front panel.

But all of that depends on your providing us with further information.

Where did you get that idea it would do that? - it's not a router! The only reason for it to do that would be a deliberate attempt to break a network.

It might be running DHCP client, try watching with a packet sniffer (eg wireshark) when you plug it in. Failing that, do an ARP scan with nmap.

Are you sure it is an Ethernet port?

Many of them do. All depends on getting further information from the OP on make and model. They would typically be factory configured to do dhcp, but might be configurable from the front panel.