<p>PR ranks top Library Systems (top 5):</p>
<p>1 Brigham Young University (UT) </p>
<p>2 Princeton University </p>
<p>3 Whitman College </p>
<p>4 Harvard College </p>
<p>5 University of Chicago</p>
<p>Does anyone have next 15?</p>
<p>Yet again, PR proves its uselessness! Forget PR, all it does is give BS ratings.</p>
<p>Harvard's library system is unequaled. It rivals the Library of Congress of crying out loud. If I were to rank the top University library systems, I would rank them as follows:</p>
<h1>1 Harvard University (16 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>2 Yale University (11 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>3 University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (10 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>4 University of California-Berkeley (9 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>5 Columbia University (8 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>5 Stanford University (8 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>5 University of California-Los Angeles (8 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>5 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (8 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>5 University of Texas-Austin (8 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>9 Cornell University (7 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>9 University of Chicago (7 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>11 Indiana University-Bloomington (6.5 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>11 University of Wisconsin-Madison (6.5 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>13 Princeton University (6 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>13 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (6 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>13 University of Washington (6 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>16 Ohio State University-Columbus (5.5 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>16 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (5.5 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>18 Duke University (5 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>18 University of Arizona (5 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>18 University of Pennsylvania (5 million volumes)</h1>
<h1>18 Univiersity of Virginia (5 million volumes)</h1>
<p>By the way, when those libraries list their volumes, they are refering to titles. Universities have several copies of each volume, depending on the demand for that volume and on the size of the university.</p>
<p>Just as an FYI, Brigham Young has a 2.5 million volume Library System. That's more than three times smaller than any of the top 10 University libraries in the country. Like I said, PR = useless!</p>
<p>greater number of volumes = better always?</p>
<p>So size means better? hmmmm?</p>
<p>Yes, you do sound like a bright one Alexandre. I'll take the Porsche, you take the Mercury Marquis.</p>
<p>Before making an a-- of yourself AGAIN, maybe you should read the PR criteria.</p>
<p>Pretty much. Obviously, you want the libraries to be housed in pleasant looking buildings and you want the books to be easily accessibly. But by and large, the more volumes a library system has, the better it is. You simply cannot compare a library system with fewer than 3 million volumes to a library system with over 6 million volumes. It just isn't done!</p>
<p>It just so happens those are some of the best libraries.</p>
<p>Veritas, I thought we were talking about libraries, not cars. And there is no need to insult anybody on this forum. I did ready PR's criteria. As usual, it is way off.</p>
<p>i can see that veritas hasn't been on the site much...</p>
<p>alexandre is one of the most respected posters on CC. Any comment he makes are based in facts they aren't very subjective posts (well except the sometimes Michigan biased ones ;)...) </p>
<p>Seriously the PR ranking are ********. Every PR ranking I've ever seen is retarded. It's a fact that Harvard has the best university library in the world...BYU hahahahahaha.</p>
<p>I was talking about libraries and library systems. You were talking "big must be better". </p>
<p>Hey, I'll take the ferrari, you take the ford taurus!</p>
<p>Veritas btw some forum etiquette:</p>
<p>Only post your thread under one section. You've been doing this for the last month. It's annoying to see the same thread in multiple sections. Only post in one...</p>
<p>perhaps Alexandre took offense to this particular PR ranking:</p>
<p>Teaching Assistants Teach Too Many Upper-Level Courses
"What percentage of upper-level courses is taught by teaching assistants?"</p>
<p>1 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2 University of Iowa
3 University of Kansas
4 Ohio State University - Columbus
5 Purdue University-West Lafayette
6 University of California-Riverside
7 University of Tennessee - Knoxville
8 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick
9 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
10 Florida State University</p>
<p>There's no real point in engaging with veritas, who is quite obviously alphcdcd's sock. He/she/it exists on this site for the sole purpose of promoting Princeton and bashing Harvard on as many boards as possible. Better just to stop responding and let the clutter of junk threads started by this poster die out.</p>
<p>Ok Byerly, I mean Cosar.</p>
<p>Alexandre (Michigan) and Cosar/Byerly (Harvard) are very sensitive about rankings and news items that put their schools behind their peers. The threads bear this out.</p>
<p>Or better get him banished for his clutter of junk threads. That's my crusade anyway ;)</p>
<p>One man's junk, is another's ______. I provide people with information. The information is read and often appreciated. I try not to troll onto others threads spewing garbage.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are some (eg. Cosar/Byerly) who cannot stand seeing their schools fall in any way behind their peers. So they result to very persoanl assaults on those bearing the news.</p>
<p>The quality of a library is important to many who are now looking at colleges. The site where that information is contained is also helpful.</p>
<p>All your petty e-complaining aside, lets talk about libraries. I know the UCs all have inter-library loan, so take berkeley's 9 million and add to it the millions of volumes found in other libraries on UC campuses. Im not sure if HYPS have anything like this (wouldnt suprise me if they do) but you all might want to take that into account.
Also, i find the PR rankings quite useful, as I think they relate more to whats actually important to an actual college student than anything else. As a student, i think i will care about how clean and well kept, accessible, friendly, large, and navigable a library is. You cannot judge a library based solely on how many books it has, Alexandre's data belongs on a different thread "which colleges have the most volumes", not this one. Of the college libraries I've visited, these rankings come to mind
excellent: CSU sonoma (the charles schulz library, complete with one of a kind 2001 a space oddysey-essque robotic book retrieval system and Jack London reading room)
decent: Northwestern (eh, large and typical, the main building is ugly and imposing)
decent: Santa Cruz: Ugly building, nice area, seemed friendly enough
Reed: everything a library should be, accesible, student friendly, warm and home-ey</p>
<p>TheCity, I agree with you. Libraries are supposed to be functional and student friendly. You can bet that schools that spent enough money to collect 5 million + volumes all spent an equal amount of money housing their books in beautiful and functional libraries. I have been to many libraries, from Chicago to Cornell to Michigan to Stanford to Harvard etc... they each have their own characters. Even libraries within one system have individual charcters. But all of the schools with top library systems have incredible facilities for students to sit down and learn. So the determining factor in judging the quality of a library system is how many books are availlable to the students.</p>
<p>I understand that rankings irk those that believe their favored school was slighted in some way. But, as in this case, if the rankings produce discussions that bring to light a quality educational issue, then I think the news releases or rankings are quite relevent. I feel rewarded by those, like City, who step up and say that they do want to talk about the main issue (and not personailities or my school v. yours).</p>
<p>P.S. Alexandre, saying that bigger libraries are better than smaller ones is as rediculous as saying that bigger colleges must be better than smaller colleges. Or, that 2 colleges of the same size must be the same in terms of quality. This ranking is the result of student opinions. Why should CCers discard the opinions of thousands of students who've actually used the libraries repeatedly, versus your opinion based on the number of books they have?</p>
<p>veritas, it's not ridiculous at all. Size doesn't matter if you're talking the difference between your library and mine, since if you have 300 books and I have 50, the question of quality of the holdings is paramount.</p>
<p>But if you're talking about comparing the quality of an academic library with 8mm volumes, to an academic library with 2.5 mm volumes, then assuredly size is critical. It just stands to reason that they will have a larger and broader selection. </p>
<p>These are generalities. If you are interested in certain subjects, then size may not matter because you would be more interested in how many volumes the library has in one particular field. </p>
<p>The bottom line is, as far as I'm concerrned, that most major colleges/universities will have more volumes than I will ever read !</p>
<p>Veritas, there are three things I use to determine the quality of a library. </p>
<p>1) Variety of literary offerings.
2) Comfort and availlability of reading/studying spaces.
3) Accessability</p>
<p>In terms of points one and two, almost all weatlhy top universities have similar setups. It is point one that differentiates. Now I do not believe that sheer size alone determines quality. But to say that BYU has a better library than Princeton, Harvard or Chicago is insane. By the way, while at Cornell, I knew several graduate students who had done their undergraduate studies at BYU. Although we never discussed the libraries, they pretty much were amazed at how much better the facilities at Cornell were. I seriously doubt BYU has better libraries than Princeton, Chicago and Harvard.</p>