University of Minnesota Libraries

University of Minnesota Libraries

Wilson Library, largest in the system
Country	United States
Type	Academic library
Established	1851
Branches	14
Collection
Size	7,111,311 volumes 109,681 serial subscriptions
Access and use
Population served	55,931 faculty, staff and students and the state of Minnesota
Other information
Budget	$41,225,580 annually
Director	Wendy Pradt Lougee
Staff	391
Website	http://www.lib.umn.edu/

The University of Minnesota Libraries is the library system of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, operating at 13 facilities in and around Minneapolis–Saint Paul. It has over 7 million volumes and 109,000 serial titles that are collected, maintained and made accessible. The system is the 17th largest academic library in North America and the 22nd largest library in the United States. While the system's primary mission is to serve faculty, staff and students, because the University is a land-grant institution its libraries are also open to the public.

The Libraries hold a variety of notable specialized and unusual collections. Examples include the world's largest assembly of materials on Sherlock Holmes and his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; the Kerlan Collection of over 100,000 children's books; the Hess Collection, one of North America's largest collections of dime novels, story papers and pulp fiction; the James Ford Bell Library of rare maps, books and manuscripts, and the seventh largest law library in the United States, including over 1 million volumes and personal papers such as those of Clarence Darrow.

The system is a Federal Depository Library, a State of Minnesota Depository Library and United Nations Depository Library. Among research institutions it maintains the second largest collection of government documents in North America.

The library system makes various services available to faculty, staff and students such as: