College library rankings

College Search & Selection
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<p>I want to reinforce Alex’s comment on what is going on with the library scanning at U Michigan. Other prominent libraries that are also participating include the New York Public Library system, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford. While there are other institutions that are balking at the potential for-profit approach involving Google, the end result is still ultimately going to be the same-vast quantities of library materials from many of the world’s top educational institutions will be put on the web for any and all to see and use. </p>

<p>IMO, this scanning project of library materials onto Google is a complete game-changing event that makes the university library less and less of a competitive advantage for any school. Granted, this project will likely take decades to complete, but it is not hard to envision a library as a unitary worldwide web resource that will be as available in Lubbock, Texas as in Cambridge, Mass or Cambridge, England or anywhere.</p>

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<p>^ While that is true, and the information age is definitely breaking down barriers, it still helps to have some librarians on campus to help students find the appropriate material.</p>

<p>Also, I doubt expensive research and academic journals would be scanned and made public due to copyright issues.</p>

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<p>Having access to a scanned version of a book will never be the same as being able to look through the stacks and pull out a real copy of the original. </p>

<p>The Big Ten plus Chicago have had a shared network for decades and Wisconsin is also part of the Google project. UW’s strengths include the largest collection of US History materials in the country and the second largest film and related materials collection.</p>

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<p>barrons,
I respectfully disagree. People said we’d never migrate from our daily newspapers and weekly magazines, but that is happening more and more each month and advertising dollars are switching from traditional media to the web. </p>

<p>Have you ever used electronic devices to read books and periodicals? Today, with products like Kindle, it is not hard to envision people using electronic devices in the future to read books and more. There is little doubt in my mind that such devices have the potential to greatly add to personal productivity. Once a book is scanned, the information is available anywhere, anytime. Furthermore, these devices have the ability to capture and carry around vast quantities of information, including books that have been scanned, and this capability will only expand with time. As for copyright issues, such products can download via pay systems that would satisfy copyright requirements. Such electronic products are now only in their infancy, but use a little imagination and their uses and benefits are obvious with the result being that the college library will become less and less of a differentiated asset.</p>

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<p>I do a lot of browsing and serious reading for research purposes online these days. These technologies are terrific, and they immensely aid the research process. But IMO they’ll never completely replace physical libraries, for several reasons. First, when you really want to bore into a text, there’s nothing like having it in hard copy; it’s actually much easier to bookmark key passages, flip back and forth between the index and particular topics, compare what the author said on page X with what she said on page Y, and so on. So usually the online work is just the beginning; if the book is really valuable, I ask the librarians to get me a hard copy. Second, there’s the service aspect. Skilled professional reference librarians are a priceless asset to any researcher at any level, from undergrads to senior research faculty; you just don’t get that kind of assistance from online services. Third, I have to agree with barrons: there’s nothing quite like the serendipity of a stack search in a major research library, especially when you’re plunging into a literature you don’t know well. You go looking for one title and you find half a dozen more, some fitting the bill better than the one you started with. And those in turn cite to others. It’s a much slower and more uncertain process to try to replicate that through online searches. When I look at these lists I realize I’ve been blessed to be around some of the country’s greatest libraries all my life. Notwithstanding all the digitization that’s now going on, which I regard as a positive development, I firmly believe these great libraries will continue to be an enormous advantage for the great universities they serve long into the future.</p>

<p>On a related note, one of D’s greatest frustrations when visiting many small LACs is their limited library collections, as well as their limited hours—many close at midnight weekdays and 5 or 6 pm on weekends. D is a night-owl by nature. After visiting a couple of small but highly regarded LACS with limited library collections and limited hours, D was bowled over on our tour at Michigan when she learned at the university’s collection exceeds 8 million volumes and the undergraduate library is open until 5:00 am during the academic year, and re-opens at 7 or 8 am. Not quite enough to sell her on Dad’s alma mater, but a strong selling point indeed.</p>

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<p>A VERY strong case can be made that UT-Austin has the greatest university library in the United States. Not by overall size (although UT’s collections are solidly in the top 5-10 by this measure), but overall cultural significance. Awhile back, The New York Times ranked it as one of the 5 greatest research libraries in the world and it was the only university library in the US besides Harvard and Yale included in the respected survey “Great Libraries” (Hobson), which profiled the world’s greatest libraries. Since the 60’s, UT’s oil wealth had it on a buying binge that not even Harvard, Yale, Princeton or the British Library could keep up with. There are scores of articles and publications that support this. In fact, Texas has probably been excoriated in the British press more than any other US library for “robbing Britain of its cultural heritage” (a charge that is quite amusing coming from the British!) The Ransom Center is one of the world’s greatest collections of British, French, Italian, and American literary manuscripts, rare books, photographs, and art. And across campus, the Benson collection is one of the world’s largest Central and South American libraries.</p>

<p>Literally too many articles to cite, but a simple Google Search can return articles going back several decades. </p>

<p>One of the more recent ones:</p>

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[quote=]
The Ransom Center, under Staley’s leadership, easily outmaneuvers rivals such as Yale, Harvard, and the British Library.

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</p>

<p>[Letter</a> from Austin: Final Destination: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/11/070611fa_fact_max]Letter”>Final Destination | The New Yorker)</p>

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<p>All Ivy League schools except Harvard have a joint ILL program with very fast service (as the schools are geographically close to each other).</p>

<p>You also can get access to other Ivy libraries. I’ve gone to Columbia’s library and my classmate went to Princeton’s (shame on her :P)</p>

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<p>Update:</p>

<p>Stanford has roughly 8.5 million volumes.</p>

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<p>[Libraries:</a> Stanford University Facts](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/about/facts/libraries.html]Libraries:”>http://www.stanford.edu/about/facts/libraries.html)</p>

<p>So it’s solidly top 5-10, and top 5 for private universities.</p>

<p>JWT86: what do you mean by “cultural significance”? And what does decades-old news have to do with today?</p>

<p>I still would choose Yale’s or Harvard’s libraries over UT’s any day…</p>

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<p>
[quote=]
JWT86: what do you mean by “cultural significance”?

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<p>This is of course very difficult to quantify, but in terms of just the vastness of primary source material of many of the greatest authors and playrights, really its closest equivalents in the US are the Library of Congress and New York Public Library.</p>

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[quote=]
And what does decades-old news have to do with today?

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<p>That’s kind of my point, UT was ALREADY acknowledged as one of the greatest libraries in the world back in the 70s and has continued to outpace other US libraries in rare/primary source material since then. </p>

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I still would choose Yale’s or Harvard’s libraries over UT’s any day…

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<p>You’re certainly entitled to your opinion. But if you want to see primary source material (manuscripts, correspondence, etc.) of some of the greatest authors, playrights, historical figures, photographers, etc. in one place, you’re just not going to find it at Harvard or Yale.</p>

<p>Some quotes from the web:</p>

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[quote=]

“Unquestionably, it’s the second best collection of English literature after the British Library,” Ferdinand Mount, editor of London’s Times Literary Supplement, said during a recent visit to the Ransom Center.</p>

<p>The rapid influx of cultural resources, which matched or bettered such collections at Harvard and Yale universities in comparable material, was dubbed “instant ivy” by journalist Nicholas Basbanes in his 1995 book about bibliomania, “A Gentle Madness.” “Before anybody realized what we were doing, we built a library that cannot be matched anywhere,” former center Director Warren Roberts told Basbanes.</p>

<p>In 1970, Anthony Hobson’s book “Great Libraries” shocked the bibliophile world by ranking the center with 32 of the world’s greatest archival institutions. </p>

<p>“There’s a good deal of awe at the speed at which the Ransom has been able to build such extensive collections by the dint of a lot of energy and a good deal of money,” said Jean Ashton, director of the rare books and manuscript library at Columbia University. “We admire it and are more than a little bit jealous.”</p>

<p>[ [/url</a>]</p>

<p>Increasingly, Princeton curators have found themselves standing glumly on the sidelines. “Because we don’t have a lot of money, dealers don’t even bother to come,” says Primer. </p>

<p>Horowitz confirms that. He did not call Princeton about the Mailer papers. Why bother? He knew that Princeton almost certainly would not match the kind of money he could expect to get from the Ransom Center. Horowitz believes it’s a simple difference of priorities. “At Texas,” he says, “they have identified the pursuit of literary scholarship through original manuscripts as a way of being in the world. Princeton, for whatever reason, does not seem to share this sentiment.”</p>

<p>Make no mistake: Staley is near the top of many a dealer’s speed dial. Not only does the Ransom Center have extremely deep pockets, its money has enabled Staley to build a superb collection, cared for by 100 curators and extensive conservation laboratories. </p>

<p>The Ransom’s awesome holdings, which for some time have exerted something like a gravitational pull on other contemporary authors, make it more likely that in the future other writers will want to be part of this amazing collection. This makes perfect sense: Who wants to be a library’s lone big writer when you might be in the thick of things? </p>

<p>The Ransom Center, which was founded in 1957, has pockets as deep as Texas is big, with much of it coming from oil. </p>

<p>It has paid off. Not only does the Ransom possess treasures like a Gutenberg Bible (there is one in Scheide’s collection at Firestone) and the first photograph, it competes in countless other fields, driving up prices for all. “Our strongest area is probably in the British [writers],” says Staley, sounding positively jovial. “We have Julian Barnes, we have Penelope Lively, Penelope Fitzgerald. Tom Stoppard’s papers are here. So are David Hare’s. The Booker nominations came out yesterday, and three of the nominees are already in our archive.” </p>

<p>And it’s not just literary properties that make the Ransom such a juggernaut: In 2003 the center paid $5 million for the Watergate papers of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. There’s no ignoring the Ransom’s influence on the market. That $5 million price tag has upped the ante for political papers. “There are now political figures who are approaching me about paying for their papers,” says Primer. “One called recently — I can’t say who it is — who believes his papers are worth $1 million.” </p>

<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW05-06/05-1116/features_manuscript.html]PAW”>PAW November 16, 2005: Features]PAW</a> November 16, 2005: Features](<a href=“http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/ransom/17mainransom.html] [/url”>http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/ransom/17mainransom.html)</p>

<p>"How important is the Carlton Lake Collection [at UT-Austin’s Ransom Humanities Research Center]? Florence de Lussy, conservateur en chef de manuscrits at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, had a straightforward answer… “Remarkable,” she said… “In certain areas, for example Paul Valery, the most important writer in 20th century France, you must go to Texas if you want to study the man thoroughly… Consequently, the Carlton Lake Collection is essential, and very well known here in France. I wish it were here and not there.”</p>

<ul>
<li>from “A Gentle Madness”, Nicholas Basbanes </li>
</ul>

<p>"Ranked among the top three American cultural archives of its kind — after the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library — the Ransom’s $1 billion collection contains 40 million rare books, manuscripts, photographs and works of art. The accumulation of so many gems, most collected during a 13-year period encompassing the 1960s, was attended by a fair amount of controversy. Critics abroad say the center drained Europe of its cultural heritage and sent it to Texas. "</p>

<p>"Scholars know the Ransom Center as one of the world’s pre-eminent research libraries… Though its holdings are appraised at more than $1 billion, much of its true value may lie in its ability to inspire the imagination. "</p>

<p>“They’re in the very top tier in the United States, which means they’re top-tier internationally as well,” said Barbara Shailor, director of the Beneicke Library at Yale. “They don’t specialize the way the Morgan Library or the Getty Museum do. They’re strong overall. They excel in so many ways.” </p>

<p>“There’s nowhere like it in the U.S.A., and its only rival for 20th-century material in Britain is the British Library,” said Ferdinand Mount, a former editor of The Times Literary Supplement of London who spoke at the Ransom Center recently. “I’m trying to wake up some zest from the British Library. They have the money but they’re not as proactive. The Texas people are very quick.” </p>

<p>A London newspaper, The Independent, has watched what it calls “the great trans-Atlantic manuscript race” with dismay. It warned in one article that “in a generation’s time, British scholars wishing to research the lives of our leading contemporary writers will be forced to travel to Texas.” In another article it lamented that whenever a desirable archive appears on the market, “American institutions like the University of Texas can just call up an oil-rich benefactor and ask him to put a check in the post.” </p>

<p>from “Lifting the Lid on a Treasure Chest”, STEPHEN KINZER, The New York Times (2/4/2003)

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<p>I don’t see why it has to be so shocking that a public university can have a greater library than Harvard or Yale. It’s really a shame that since UT is a large public school in the South, such an important world archive is known more by scholars around the world than the general US public.</p>

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<p>I highly doubt that Harvard and Yale are going to be lacking in that area. Sure, UT may have more of that, but I’m sure I’d find plenty of it at Harvard and Yale as well (being two of the oldest universities + two largest university libraries + huge endowments to purchase rare collections).</p>

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<p>I’m not saying it’s “shocking.” I just don’t think that rare copies of texts and such are all I want in a library. I’ve always thought of them as secondary in a great library. I want a library to have great breadth and depth, which Harvard’s and Yale’s libraries have–as does UT’s, but the former to a greater degree. To be frank, why do I care about the original writings of some author I’ve never heard of, and whose work I’m probably not going to read? And even if I did care, what use is it to me? I can “ooh” and “aah” at the rare editions, but they’re already in print elsewhere.</p>

<p>This isn’t an annoyance at UT specifically. I’ve never been wide-eyed over rare texts. IMO, those amazing collections that make UT’s library one of the greatest in the world draw me no more than would a museum.</p>

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<p>I had no idea of the richness of the Texas collection. Thanks, JST86, for a superb rundown of the treasures held in Austin. The New Yorker article was very interesting. To the person who argues that Yale and Harvard are better, it depends on what you are measuring. Harvard obviously has the most volumes outside the LOC, so you are likely to get anything you could possibly want there. But, since these huge collections are being digitilized anyway, we will one day all be able to access them. In fact, I suppose we already can with interlibrary loan. UT’s collection doesn’t interest you any more than a museum would, but, to scholars needing to study the original manuscript, I suppose UT is a museum of world literature, something that can’t be easily digitalized.</p>

<p>Obviously, HYP and other schools have the resources to compete for these manuscripts, but it seems they haven’t chosen to allocate their resources that way. I think I have read that the Beinecke collection at Yale is stronger than UT in 18th and 19th century manuscripts. It sounds like some people with a great deal of foresight and savvy put something together at Texas which is now quite special and impossible to duplicate.</p>

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<p>As I said before, I’m looking for breadth and depth, not just neat first-edition collector’s items. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>a) Not all is allowed to be digitized, b) “one day” is a long time away, c) see the above posts re: the value of a physical library</p>

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<p>I can’t really see why the original manuscript would ever be “necessary,” unless they’re studying the physical properties of the piece. It’s the words and ideas behind the piece that matter; the paper and the ink are just the medium.</p>

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<p>So they see more value in spending their money in other areas of effort. Imagine that. ;)</p>

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<p>KyleDavid – I think it’s not to examine the ink and paper that scholars are interested in. In these collections of writers’ papers, scholars are able to study the evolution of particular works and of the writer’s craft – revisions (some works have many), word changes, sections that are marked out, notes in the margins, letters written to others about the work and the writer’s life --all the unpublished stuff that sheds light on how the author thought and wrote. And, you’re right, there are probably many legal proscriptions on digitalizing these personal papers that were never even published. </p>

<p>Breadth and depth are great, but seriously, how many books do you really think you will want to read that aren’t in the basic collection of 5 million volumes or so that major university libraries have? If you do, it won’t be hard to get them through Interlibrary Loan. </p>

<p>Any way you slice it, Texas apparently has a fantastic collection of unique material. Why the need to knock it? I’m sure HYPS also have some great special collections.</p>