Rush Rhees Library

Transcription

Welcome to the Rush Rhees Library the largest of the River Campus Libraries Dedicated in 1930, the building is done in Greek Revival style On this tour, we will show how the library fits in to the undergraduates' lives We're now standing in the Frelinger Lobby Note the display cases, showcasing faculty publications The library collections and services are the cornerstone of research and scholarship at the university The library spaces, though, belong to the students This is the Welles-Brown Room, one of the students' favorite study spaces Straight ahead is the reference area students can print out articles, find books they need, and ask questions through our Ask a Library chat service Librarians at the Reference Desk help students with research questions Reference staff is available seven days a week during the academic year To the right of the reference computers, you'll find the Hawkins-Carlson Room. This newly renovated space is used for lectures and receptions and is also a popular study room Near the Towers Stack entrance is the Circulation Desk where you can check out books and journals, request to reserve books, or make a request for materials not found on the shelf. Nearby are the Popular Reading and New Books collections The staircase takes you to the Periodical Reading Room This room is usually packed with students studying and reading quietly. In fact, the students will give you The Look if you talk too loudly When the weather is nice, you can step on out to the balcony and relax in an adirondack chair Across the lobby with this large statue of Industry and Athena is the Great Hall, another good study spot Stairs lead up to offices, the Robbins Library and the History Department The Business and Government Information Library which opened in 2006 has business resources and federal documents The Center also has a huge collection of microforms and machines for viewing or creating PDF files from microfilm The business collection has corporate financial data back to the 1920s with thousands of federal documents published by the U.S. government that covers everything from NASA to polio vaccines If you step into the doorway marked Administration and turn to the right you'll see the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections The Rare Books and Special Collections Library contains more than 100,000 rare books and over 350 manuscript collections The oldest printed book in the collection is the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas printed in Germany in 1472 On the right side of the entrance are Special Collections Exhibit Cases The library installs more than a dozen exhibits each year displaying materials from the collections To the left of the entrance is the Hyam Plutzik Library of Contemporary Writing where Creative Writing classes are held The Seward Room is lined with exhibition cases in rows of shelves, containing law books which William Henry Seward owned Mr. Seward's papers include a number of letters from Abraham Lincoln Students can use the collections from the Kominsky Reading Room with its eight large study tables Student internships including primary-source documents including the Frederick Douglass Letters are available each year in the Rare Books and Special Collections Library As you head down the hall towards the elevator check out the portrait library of famous Rochesterians Take the elevator to the fourth floor to visit the Robbins Library The Robbins Library has one of the best collections in the world for Middle English Literature and the Middle Ages in general Housed in room 416 of Rush Rhees, it also includes the Koller-Collins Center for English Studies The Robbins Library has books on medieval literature, history and culture especially of chivalry and the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood It also has many books on witchcraft Russell Hope-Robbins, a widely published medievalist and author of the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology donated his library to the University The Robbins Library and Koller-Collins Center is also the center of medival activities on campus Conferences and talks on medieval and literary topics including the lectures sponsored by the Undergraduate Midieval Society are held in the Robbins Library The Robbins Library has several important websites devoted to Middle English literature and folklore The Camelot Project provides information on the many legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table Scholars from universities throughout the world have contributed to the Camelot Project Undergraduate students also contribute to the project through research internships Now lets take the elevator down to the Ground Floor The Art/Music Library is located on the Ground Floor of Rush Rhees Library beyond the gallery space The Art/Music LIbrary has musical scores and CDs and books and journals on photography, architecture, painting and visual studies. There are tables and carrels for individual and group study, as well as comfortable chairs and for-public computers Further down the hall you'll see the Multimedia Center They have a student-founded collection of over 3000 DVDs which you can browse and borrow for 4 days Now we come to the Information Technology Center with plenty of computers for students The Upstairs gallery is popular for group study Next we climb the staircase to the new Gleason Library Opened in Fall 2007, the Gleason Library combines group study spaces with chairs for solo reading, a projection room for videos, and lots of natural light Gleason acts as a third space for students, apart from their dormitories and the classroom This concludes our tour of the library We hope you'll return soon