It’s clear: The Library’s impact is vast.
Nearly 13 million volumes. Almost 100,000 active Library users. More than 2.6 million online visitors. These are more than dry statistics. Bit by bit, they reveal how scholars and students use our resources to further their studies, solve real-life problems, add to our collective knowledge, and help better the world. Click on the numbers to learn more about each item!
12,816,655
Volumes in the Library’s collections
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94,085
ACTIVE LIBRARY USERS
Recent high-profile visitors include former Sen. Barbara Boxer, writer Joyce Carol Oates, and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, a self-described “accidental librarian” — and the first female and first African American to hold that post.
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303,900
COLLECTION ITEMS CIRCULATED
Our offerings run the gamut, and patrons can check out everything from high-tech tools, including laptops and tablets, to astounding artwork to grace their walls. This year, the number of MacBook checkouts numbered 16,354 and 353 pieces of art were borrowed through the Graphic Arts Loan Collection.
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38
COUNTRIES THAT BORROW THE LIBRARY’S MATERIALS
Where do our loaned items go?
- Canada (828 loan requests filled)
- Australia (574)
- United Kingdom (113)
- Italy (69)
- Korea (63)
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2,616,243
VISITORS TO THE LIBRARY WEBSITE
Where do our visitors come from?
- United States (2.2 million sessions)
- India (51,345)
- United Kingdom (38,261)
- Canada (36,613)
- China (21,219)
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400
LANGUAGES REPRESENTED IN THE COLLECTIONS
Among the 400-plus languages is Jarawa, which has an estimated 340 native speakers worldwide, according to the Endangered Languages Project. Wheeler Hall’s auditorium could seat double that amount of people — with room to spare. Dead languages include Old Norse, which was spoken in Scandinavia around the ninth to 13th centuries.
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1,480,889
E-BOOKS AVAILABLE
The most popular e-books? No. 1 is the Oxford English Dictionary. No. 2? Head First Java, recommended in a class that’s required for computer science majors. In addition to accessing e-books, Library users can browse the collection of over 120,000 e-journals, from which 3.8 million articles are downloaded annually.
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321,855
SCANS OF ITEMS IN THE LIBRARY’S COLLECTIONS TO SHARE OUR RESOURCES WITH THE WORLD
What has been difficult to digitize? The more than 2,000 glass plate negatives of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The fragile — and sometimes broken — plates are scanned as negatives, and positives are created digitally. Some plates are large, and the images are dense, contributing to the challenge.
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131,478
e-journals available
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