University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign University Library

It provides resources and services to the university's students, faculty, staff, and the broader academic community.

By certain metrics, such as the number of volumes, it was ranked as the fifth-largest academic library in the United States at that time.

[11] The Undergraduate Library building was constructed in 1969, built underground in order to maintain open spaces and leave unobstructed sun for the university's experimental cornfield.

[17] University librarians contributed to the development of online card catalogs, participating in the broader movement towards library automation.

[25] In 1994, the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center introduced both public and staff PC workstations with internet connectivity, aligning with technological advancements of the time.

They may choose to make their dissertations or theses available to the general public or restrict them to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign affiliates.

[41] Additionally, they may choose to restrict their work entirely, ensuring that for a period of two years after graduation it will remain embargoed.

[41] In addition to dissertations and theses, IDEALS contains research by many of the scholars and departments at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,[40] much of which is freely available to the general public.

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) at Illinois acquired the Gwendolyn Brooks archives in 2014, reflecting its role in promoting literary studies and outreach activities.

[43] Additionally, the Rare Books & Manuscript Library holds personal archives of French novelist Marcel Proust; English writers John Milton, H.G.

Wells, and Anthony Trollope; English politician Benjamin Disraeli; and Olympian and former president of the International Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage.

[47] In this context, the term "serial" includes periodicals such as journals, magazines, and newspapers, as well as yearbooks.

Items collected range from yearbooks, called "Illios," to fraternity documents to newspapers covering University sports, new initiatives, and even world wars.

[60] The project is ongoing, and the University Library hopes to digitize considerably more of its large newspaper collection.

[63] The University Library is committed to increasing access to its public domain works, and as such is currently working with Google Books; the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and Google; and the Open Content Alliance and its partners HathiTrust, Internet Archive, and Illinois Harvest.

[64][65] The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library offers a variety of services for its affiliates and community members.

Illinois faculty, staff, and students can chat with a librarian for extended hours and get their questions answered from wherever they are.

[70] The University Library provides services to help researchers save, find, use, retrieve, analyze, and visualize their data.

Located on the third floor of the Main Library, the Scholarly Commons[74] is a hub for digital and data-based research.

Additionally, Scholarly Commons staff manage IDEALS, the Library's university repository and host events[77] on a variety of topics, including altmetrics and the non-academic job search.

Because every academic unit on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus has an affiliated subject librarian,[80] instructors from that area can request their subject librarian teach sessions on library searching, resource evaluation, data management, and information literacy.

These 50-minute sessions cover a range of topics, all of which help affiliates do advanced research, searching, evaluation, and data analysis.

Workshops help students, faculty, and staff navigate the full research life cycle, from the literature review to citation management.

These web pages, entitled "learn",[83] teach affiliates and community members about library resources, software, and information and citation management practices.

Any Illinois affiliate can also contact the information desk to receive a personal tour of the Main Library space.

For example, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library often curates displays and holds events when they procure new collections.

They also hold yearly events celebrating important anniversaries, including Shakespeare's birthday, publicized through their newsletter.