Purpose and Scope
The Grinnell College Libraries' primary goal is to support
the research and study needs of Grinnell College students
working within the liberal arts curriculum offered by Grinnell
College. According to its stated mission, the libraries
also seek to support the basic research needs of the faculty.
This means providing a collection that is representative
of subject areas in the humanities, social sciences, and
sciences, education (from a theoretical and practical point
of view), and the fine arts.
Because our students engage in high-level research, we collect
material of a more specialized nature than many undergraduate
colleges. While currency is important, we also consider
it essential to maintain works that represent the scholarship
of the past. Thus, our collections serve a variety of purposes:
providing a picture of the past as well as the present.
The growing focus on materials that represent popular culture
and trends means that almost nothing is out of scope for
a research oriented collection. Our collections contain
material in many formats and languages.
Foreign Language Material
We actively collect books published in French, German, Spanish,
Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. Our focus is literature,
but we also select representative secondary materials in
the original language. We have a growing collection of foreign
language videos and dvds, both for entertainment and curricular
purposes. We strive to have a wide-ranging collection of
sound recordings representative of cultures and genre from
around the globe and of historical and current musical practices
and trends.
Diversity of Content and Genre
The libraries seek to have a collection that represents
the diversity of opinions and backgrounds present in the
State of Iowa, the United States, and the world. We have
been aggressive in building a collection that is representative
of authors from all U.S. backgrounds, and diverse points
of view. We have highlighted certain collections: for instance,
the Black Library and the Latino Collection at the encouragement
of our student body, and the East Asian Collection, to bring
a very specialized segment of the collection into one place.
We collect belles lettres written in English and published
in translation from around the world with a view to its
long term place in the collection, and also collect more
popular genres such as mysteries, science fiction, and detective
novels for our small browsing collection of current fiction.
poetry and timely current nonfiction (the Smith
Memorial).
Places on Campus
The Grinnell College Libraries are located in three locations.
Burling Library, The Curriculum
Library in Steiner, and the Kistle
Science Library in the Noyce Science Center. For more
information please see Collections.
A Collection for the Present and the Future
The Grinnell College Libraries are building their collection
with the future as well as the present generation of users
in mind. In building both our print and electronic holdings,
we make decisions that will guaranty a strong collection
when the college celebrates its bicentennial and tricentennial.
We add between 8,000 to 10,000 volumes a year and subscribe
to over 2,000 periodicals and journals. We welcome recommendations
from across the campus community.
