Gideonse Library

LaGuardia Hall, the library from the North Gate. May 18th, 1953

MEET THE LIBRARIAN | VISIT THE LIBRARY
Search the Stacks

Brooklyn College's original library, LaGuardia Hall, anchors the east end of the college campus, one of several lovely and harmonious Georgian buildings surrounding a large, tree-shaded green. The library not occupies not only this recently restored 1936 building, whose commanding clocktower serves as the College's emblem and an important traditional symbol, but also an addition built twenty-five years ago, which increased the Library's space for services and collections to some 120,000 square feet. Planning is underway for a complete renovation of the existing buildings, and a pair of additions that will double the present space.

Chief Librarian Barbra Buckner Higginbotham

Since 1985 Barbra Higginbotham has been the director of the Library at Brooklyn College, where she also teaches in the English Department. In the fall, 1994, she assumed the additional responsibility of academic computing. Before coming to Brooklyn, Dr. Higginbotham served for eight years in the Columbia University Libraries, first as Head of Original Cataloging, then as Head of Access Services. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from Centenary college of Louisiana, and a masters and doctorate in library science from Columbia University.

Dr Higginbotham is active in LITA, the Library Information and Technology Association, where she serves on the Board of Directors. She is also a member of METRO's Board of Trustees. Her research interests include preservation and technology, and she writes, lectures, and does grant reviews in both fields.

Dr Higginbotham's most recent books include Advances in Preservation and Access (v.2) (Learned Information, 1995); Access Versus Asserts: A Comprehensive Resource Sharing Manual for Academic Librarians (ALA Books, 1993); Advances in Preservation and Access (v.1) (Meckler, 1992); and Our Past Preserved: A History of American Library Preservation, 1875-1910 (G.K. Hall, 1990).

Visit the Library

The Library's mission, the provision of integrated information support for the College's instructional and research activities, is supported by collections totaling 1.2 million volumes, 5,000 periodical subscriptions, and significant electronic, audiovisual, and microform holdings. The Library adds approximately 15,000 new titles each year to its comprehensive humanities, social sciences, and sciences collections. The Library serves 16,000 students and a full-time faculty of 600.

The Brooklyn College Library is fully automated. Facilities include an integrated library system (using NOTIS software), a local area network with a direct connection to the Internet, extensive bibliographic and full-text holdings on CD-ROM, World Wide Web access, and multimedia collections. The College's academic computing program is also part of the Library. A state-of-the-art Faculty Training and Development Laboratory and three multimedia classrooms support this initiative.

The Library's first floor houses circulation and reference services, and one of the two major LAN nodes. On the second floor are found all bound periodicals, the microform reading area, government publications, a second LAN node, the World Wide Web browsing area, multimedia collections, the photocopy center, and (in the LaGuardia double-height reading room) current periodicals and the reserves collection.

The third floor contains the humanities and social science monographic collections. On the fourth floor are located the Music Library, the Listening Room, and Special Collections. The Library's lower level houses monographs in the sciences, the Audiovisual Center, Research Services, and the Faculty Training and Development Laboratory.

Brooklyn College librarians provide extensive reference service to faculty and students over the course of a sixty-nine hour service week. The Library also has an actaive instruction program, providing training in the use of information resources in all formats. The collaborative building and shaping of resources by librarians and faculty is a tradition at the College...one that has contributed to the significance of the collections, which are widely acknowledged to be among the best in the City University system. Not only do print and electronic formats support the College's celebrated core curriculum and other undergraduate and graduate programs, but the Library also holds important special collections, among these the Brooklyniana Collection, the Manuscripts Collection (including materials of Oscar Handlin and Sam Levenson), the Robert L. Hess Collection on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, and the College Archives.

The Library acknowledges its responsibility to meet faculty and student information needs, wherever the materials they want actually reside; using traditional interlending and commercial document suppliers, the Research Services unit provides rapid, efficient access to remotely held materials.

The Library participates in cooperative activities and arrangements with other libraries in the Borough of Brooklyn (Academic Libraries of Brooklyn), in the metropolitan area (Metropolitan Reference and Research Agency-METRO), within the State of New York, and nationally (Online Computer Library Center). The Brooklyn College Library is represented on the Council of Chief Librarians of the City University of New York. This body works closely to promote the development of system-wide library projects benefiting all CUNY libraries.
November 1995

Take a Look Around...

SCIENCE CENTER

Tour the Campus