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McGill University Library
McGill University Library
Location	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Type	Academic library
Branches	13
Collection
Size	11.8 million items
Other information
Budget	C$42.271 million (2018)
Employees	235
Website	mcgill.ca/library

McGill University Library is the library system of McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. It comprises 13 branch libraries, located on the downtown Montreal and Macdonald^[2] campuses, holding over 11.78 million items.^[3] It is the fourth-largest research intensive academic library in Canada.^[4]

Description

The largest of the branch libraries is the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, which is housed in the McLennan and Redpath Library Buildings.^[5] The Humanities and Social Sciences Library has notable collections in Canadian Studies, English and American Literature, British History, Russian and East European Studies, and World War II.

The Library's ROAAr Group was formed in 2016 to unite Rare Books and Special Collections, The Osler Library of the History of Medicine, The Visual Arts Collection, and Archives and Records Management.^[6]

Rare Books and Special collections contains holdings on a variety of subjects, including art and architecture, Canadiana, history, literature, the history of ideas, travel and exploration, and the history of the book.^[7] The Lawrence Lande Collection of Canadiana consists of 12,000 items, including books, pamphlets, maps, prints, periodicals, government documents, and broadsides.^[8]^[9]

The Osler Library of the History of Medicine, in the McIntyre Medical Building, is Canada's foremost scholarly resource in the history of medicine, and one of the most important libraries of its type in North America.^[10] As of 2011, the Humanities and Social Sciences Library and the Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering are open 24/7 in most cases during midterms and finals during the academic year.

The Islamic Studies Library, located in Morrice Hall with the McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies that prepares graduate students for M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, is one of the largest collections of its kind in Canada.

The McGill University Library's Cyberthèque – a large-scale, multi-purpose information facility – opened its doors to McGill students in 2008. Located in the Redpath Library Building at street level, the "experiential" Cyberthèque blends a diverse range of studying and learning spaces for groups and individuals, various technology and multi-media installations, and timely assistance in accessing and using information. This unique facility was designed by Montréal architect François Emond and his team at ékm architecture together with Douglas Birkenshaw, and his team at Bregmann + Hamann from Toronto.

Branch libraries

Birks Reading Room

Humanities and Social Sciences Library
Blackader-Lauterman Collection of Architecture and Art
Islamic Studies Library
Education Curriculum Resource Centre
Edward Rosenthall Mathematics and Statistics Library
MacDonald Campus Library
Marvin Duchow Music Library
Nahum Gelber Law Library
Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering

Special Branches (ROAAr Units)

Osler Library of the History of Medicine
Rare Books and Special Collections
McGill University Archives
Visual Arts Collection

Partnerships and collaboration

The Library is a member of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries,^[11] the Association of Research Libraries (ARL),^[12] and the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ),^[13] as well as other cooperative groups. The Library is a contributor to the Open Content Alliance

Projects

As of 2010, one of the Library's major projects involves digitization of books in the public domain.^[14]^[15] In 2013 the McGill library became the second non-US based partner institution with HathiTrust digital library^[16] and plans on making their digitized collections available through this repository. The library regularly contributes unique digitized public domain from their collections to the Internet Archive.

History

From 1862 to 1893 the library was located in the west wing of the Arts Building (Molson Hall), where the collection slowly expanded. In 1893 the Redpath Library opened in what is now Redpath Hall. At the same time, the first full-time University Librarian, Charles H. Gould (1893–1919) was appointed. Under Gould and Gerhard Lomer (1920–1947) both the collection and staff expanded. By the 1920s and 1930s the central library's lack of space meant that there was more departmental and area libraries being established.

In 1952 a large addition to Redpath Hall was opened to the south and the east wall of the original building was enclosed. It was at this time the library reading room was moved over what is now known at the Redpath library building and the Hall became a music hall.^[17] It was during this time that the University Librarian became primarily responsible for this main library collection that covered the humanities and social sciences discipline. Area libraries in Medicine, Law, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Divinity, Nursing and other disciplines were still largely independent. In 1969, McLennan Library (Humanities and Social Sciences) opened, and Senate set up a University Libraries Commission whose Report (1971) recommended reorganization and greater coordination in the administration of the library systems.^[18]