The University Libraries

The libraries of the University are a resource center for Texas and the Southwest, as well as a national resource center for library materials on Latin America, Texas, the history of the American South and West, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century British, French, and American literature. Libraries include the University of Texas Libraries, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, and the Joseph D. Jamail Center for Legal Research: Tarlton Law Library. The University of Texas Libraries include the Perry-Castañeda Library, the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, six science and technology libraries, and several other branches and special collections.

The University Libraries website serves as the gateway to an array of online information resources. These include the online library catalog which provides information on most items located in the collections of the University of Texas Libraries, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, and the Humanities Research Center, and a partial listing for items in the Law Library. The University Libraries website also offers access to millions of pages of specially licensed scholarly information, including the full text of articles and illustrations from thousands of journals, the full text of about 80,000 books in electronic format, several hundred indexes, and an extensive online map collection. A variety of library services are also available online.

Detailed information about the University Libraries is given in General Information.

Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History is a special collections library, archive, and museum that facilitates research and sponsors programs on the historical development of the United States. The center supports research and education by acquiring and preserving research collections and making them accessible and by sponsoring exhibitions, conferences, fellowships, and grant-funded initiatives. Research collection strengths are the history of Texas, the South, the Southwest, and the Rocky Mountain West, congressional history, and other specific national topics.

More information is given in General Information.

Harry Ransom Center

The Harry Ransom Center is one of the world’s foremost institutions for literary and cultural research. It offers resources in a number of disciplines and periods, but its principal strength is in its collections of twentieth-century British, American, and French literature. The center houses about a million books, thirty million manuscripts, five million photographs, and more than one hundred thousand works of art.

More information is given in General Information.

Information Technology Services

Information Technology Services (ITS) supports the University’s academic and research programs by providing an information-technology-based environment, technological capabilities, and a staff to assist students, faculty and staff members, academic departments, and research centers with their learning, teaching, research, and outreach activities. ITS provides the University’s core computing, wired and wireless networking, video conferencing, satellite conferencing, network directory, domain name, and information processing infrastructure, as well as a broad range of services and support programs.

The facilities and services provided by ITS are described in General Information.

Law Library

The Joseph D. Jamail Center for Legal Research: Tarlton Law Library is one of the largest academic law libraries in the country, with more than a million volumes of codes, statutes, court decisions, administrative regulations, periodicals, textbooks, and treatises on law and related fields. It offers a strong collection of foreign and international legal materials.

More information is given in General Information.

Other Libraries in Austin

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, located on campus, is operated by the National Archives and Records Administration. This library is a valuable resource for the study of the twentieth century. Faculty members and students also have access to other public and private libraries in the Austin area, including several special-interest libraries.

Perry-Castañeda Library

This six-level open stack library contains more than 2.5 million volumes and is the main library of the University. It serves most subject areas but emphasizes the humanities; the social sciences; business; education; nursing; social work; and European, East European, Asian, Middle Eastern, Hebraic, and Judaic studies. Special materials include United States and United Nations official documents, current journals, and newspapers. On-site reference service is offered, and graduate students may consult subject bibliographers to identify useful resources and gain access to them.

Research Facilities

The University offers some of the most extensive university research facilities in the United States. There are more than a hundred organized research units on campus and many other informally organized laboratories; they give graduate students the opportunity to conduct laboratory and field research in almost all fields of study. Internships are also offered in many fields.

Special Collections and Branch Libraries

The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, an internationally recognized resource for research in Latin American and United States Latino studies, contains more than a million volumes of books, pamphlets, and journals, in addition to extensive collections of manuscripts, maps, newspapers, photographs, recordings, and microfilm. It includes materials on any subject related to Latin America or written by a Latin American, regardless of language.

The branch libraries are the Architecture and Planning Library (including the Alexander Architectural Archive), the Mallet Chemistry Library, the Classics Library, the Collections Deposit Library, the Fine Arts Library, the Walter Geology Library, the Human Rights Documentation Initiative, the Life Science Library, the Kuehne Physics Mathematics Astronomy Library, and the Marine Science Library in Port Aransas. Reference, circulation, and reserves services are available at all branch libraries.