Library Facts and Figures

 With holdings of over three million volumes, the Rutgers University Libraries rank among the nation's top research libraries. Comprised of twenty-five libraries, collections, and reading rooms located on Rutgers' campuses in New Brunswick/Piscataway, Camden, and Newark, the Libraries provide the resources and services necessary to support the university's mission of teaching, research, and service.

Collections

There are two large research libraries on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campuses: the Library of Science and Medicine, which houses the primary collections in behavioral, biological, earth and pharmaceutical sciences, and engineering; and the Archibald S. Alexander Library, which provides extensive humanities and social sciences collections. The Mabel Smith Douglass Library supports undergraduate education and houses the primary collections for women's studies and the performing arts. The Kilmer Library is the primary business library in New Brunswick and provides support for undergraduate instruction. There are also several specialized libraries and collections in the New Brunswick/Piscataway area including Alcohol Studies, Art, Stephen and Lucy Chang Science Library, Chemistry, East Asian, Entomology, Mathematical Sciences, Music, Physics, and Special Collections and University Archives.

The John Cotton Dana Library in Newark (which also houses the Institute of Jazz Studies) supports all undergraduate and graduate programs offered on the Newark Campus with an emphasis on business, management, and nursing. The Robeson Library houses a broad liberal arts collection, which supports all undergraduate and graduate programs offered on the Camden campus. Law Libraries are also located on both the Camden and Newark campuses and have separate policies and online catalogs.

Resources

The Libraries provide numerous electronic resources to the Rutgers community. Library users can search IRIS, the online catalog, through the Libraries' web site at http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu. IRIS identifies materials owned by Rutgers libraries located in Camden, New Brunswick/Piscataway, and Newark, and contains records for most items acquired since 1972. Students, faculty, and staff can also access a variety of electronic indexes and abstracts, full-text electronic journals, research guides, and library services online. The Libraries provide hundreds of CD-ROM titles in addition to online resources.

Services

Rutgers University students, faculty, staff, and alumni are entitled to borrow materials from any of the Rutgers University Libraries. The Rutgers Request Service and Interlibrary Loan Service allow library users to request books and journal articles located at distant Rutgers libraries or outside the university. The loan period for faculty, staff, and graduate students is one full semester. All other borrowers, including undergraduate students, may keep materials for twenty-eight days. All materials, regardless of loan period or borrower's privileges, are subject to recall.

Reference librarians are available at all of the major libraries to assist with research projects, classroom instruction, and research strategies. In addition to individual instruction at the reference desk and in-class teaching at instructors' requests, librarians also hold a series of hands-on workshops each semester on various electronic resources. Members of the reference department are available to help with both computerized and non-computerized reference searches. For a fee, librarians also provide specialized subject database searching.

The Libraries are committed to providing equal access to services and collections for all library patrons. Users with disabilities may request special services through the circulation or reference department in each library.

Library Statistics 2003/2004:

Collections
Total Volumes: 3,473,224
Current Print Subscriptions: 19,321
Current Electronic Subscriptions: 15,294
Government Documents: 2,547,407
Microform Items: 4,527,827
Services
Circulation: 703,277
Reference questions: 185,122
Classes taught: 870
Building use: 2,515,067
7 Sep 2005