Northwestern University maintains an extensive library system to support its programs of study and research. This system includes the University Library and a number of special libraries on the Evanston and Chicago campuses. The library holdings constitute a collection of approximately 4.3 million volumes, 4.2 million microfilms, and over 39,000 currently received journals and other serial publications. Special libraries primarily serve the schools or departments they are associated with and are open to all Northwestern Students. Because of the quality and extent of its holdings, the Northwestern University library system ranks tenth among the nation's private universities.
Click on a link below to learn more about Northwestern's libraries.
University Library
The University Library offers excellent facilities for graduate study and postdoctoral research. Numerous subject specialists are available to help locate specific research resources. The main library and the adjoining Charles Deering Library contain the Evanston campus collections in the humanities, history, and the social sciences.
Increasing numbers of library resources are also available via the Internet. NUcat, the library’s online catalog, provides information on most books and all periodicals in Evanston campus libraries and on many materials in Chicago campus libraries. www.library.northwestern.edu/
Use of the Library
The University Library is open to students, faculty, and staff of Northwestern University. Guides to the library, copies of the regulations governing use of the library, and the library's lending policy are available at the Circulation, Information Commons, and Reference desks. The WildCARD identification card issued by the University to students, faculty, and staff serves as a library card and must be displayed for entrance to the library during nights and weekends.
The Reference Department provides many services to graduate students, including individualized instruction in research methods and assistance in locating print and electronic resources needed for research. Staff members offer special library tours for graduate students each fall. Schedules of these tours are available in the library and in the various department offices. Graduate students may apply at Circulation Services for carrels in the research towers. A limited number of closed studies are available to advanced graduate students.
Many other departments offer services to students. The Government Publications and Maps Department has extensive collections of federal, state, and international documents, as well as social science statistical data sets. There is a permanent reserve collection — the 36,000-volume Core-Reserve — which consists of key books in each discipline taught at the University. The Interlibrary Loan Department makes available books and materials from research libraries in the United States and other countries. The University Library also features MediaWorks, a student multimedia lab, the Marjorie Iglow Mitchell Multimedia Center, and Digital Media Services. The Curriculum Collection, containing teaching aids and related materials, targets those interested in the field of education.
Art Collection
Located in the Deering Library, the Art Collection contains books and journals in art, architecture, design, and related visual arts. Collection strengths include nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western art and architectural serials. www.library.northwestern.edu/art/.
Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections
The special collections include 225,000 volumes of first, limited, or special editions and other rare and valuable material. The major collecting areas are nineteenth- and twentieth-century political movements, underground newspapers, the Women’s Collection, and the modern movement in American and English literature. www.library.northwestern.edu/spec/.
Galter Health Sciences Library
The Galter Health Sciences Library on the Chicago campus includes approximately 277,000 volumes and more than 3,000 current serials in print and electronic formats. The Galter Library serves the educational, patient care, and research information needs of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the Feinberg School of Medicine and the McGaw Medical Center institutions. Consequently, the collection focuses on basic science, clinical science, physical therapy, prosthetics and orthotics, public health, genetic counseling, clinical psychology and clinical investigation information resources. The Galter Library also has a large and varied collection of historical materials dating back to the 15th century related to these subjects. The library’s Health SmartLibrary service allows users to personalize and customize resources to meet their personal and professional information needs. www.galter.northwestern.edu/.
Joseph Schaffner Library
The Joseph Schaffner Library, located on the Chicago campus (Wieboldt Hall, second floor), is chiefly an electronic library. It serves primarily the School of Continuing Studies and the evening Managers' Program of the Kellogg School of Management and the Medill School of Journalism graduate program. www.library.northwestern.edu/schaffner/.
Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies
A rich resource of approximately 275,000 volumes, plus 15,000 books in over 300 African languages, 2,800 current journals, documents, posters, videos, photographs, rare books, and other materials on every aspect of Africa. www.library.northwestern.edu/africana/.
Music Library
The Music Library, recognized internationally for its collection of contemporary art music, is one of the country's finest academic music libraries. The library holds approximately 250,000 volumes of books, scores, sound recordings, journals, and rare materials and provides access to numerous online resources. The facility, located on the second floor of Deering Library, also includes the Listening Center , which holds the library's collection of sound recordings, and a computer lab equipped to support a variety of interests in music technology. The Music Library's special collections contain many rare publications and primary documents, including the archives of composer John Cage, conductor Fritz Reiner, and the publishing firm Ricordi. www.library.northwestern.edu/music/
Pritzker Legal Research Center
The Pritzker Legal Research Center, located on the Chicago campus, serves the information and research needs of the faculty and students of the Law School and Northwestern community. The fourteenth largest law school library in the United States, with more than 550,000 volumes, it has research-level collections in Anglo-American and international law. Its foreign law collections, are strongest for European law, and its comparative law collections are supplemented by collections for ancient, medieval, Roman, canon, Islamic, and Jewish law. The Pritzker Legal Research Center provides patrons access to a wide range of electronic resources for Anglo-American, international, and comparative law and the services that make its print and electronic information resources accessible to faculty and students. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/library
Seeley G. Mudd Library for Science and Engineering
The Seeley G. Mudd Library (SEL) for Science and Engineering holdings include the principal publications in applied mathematics, astronomy, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, and physics. SEL branch libraries — The Geological Sciences Library, in Locy Hall, and the Mathematics and Statistics Library, in Lunt Hall — house additional science collections. www.library.northwestern.edu/sel/.
Transportation Library
The Transportation Library, founded in 1956, is one of the nation's largest transportation collections. It specializes in the socioeconomic and operational aspects of all modes of transport. It also has a major collection of materials on law enforcement and police administration, and a large collection of federal environmental impact statements. www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation/.
United Library of Garrett-Evangelical and Seabury-Western Theological Seminaries
Located on Northwestern’s Evanston campus, the United Library’s collection of 325,000 volumes and 1,800 periodicals is rich in biblical studies, patristics, Christian art, ancient Near Eastern studies, archaeology, church history, American denominationalism, pietism, Christian education, African-American theological studies, women's studies, Anglicana, and Methodistica. www.unitedlibrary.org/.
Center for Research Libraries
Northwestern holds membership in the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), located in Chicago. The Center operates a cooperative library for less-used but important research materials available to Northwestern students and faculty through interlibrary loan. Detailed guides to the collections are located at the Reference Desk of the University Library. www.crl.edu/
Chicago Libraries
Northwestern University has an advantageous location for library resources. The Chicago area is one of the country’s most concentrated library centers.Among the libraries of scholarly interest in Chicago are the Newberry Library, outstanding in Continental, English, and American history and literature, as well as philology, music, and the history of printing; the University of Illinois at Chicago Library; the library system of the University of Chicago; and the libraries of the Family Institute, the Chicago Historical Society, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Field Museum of Natural History. Students should consult the Reference Department of the University Library about qualifications needed for use of special libraries.
