University Library System

The Library System provides support for graduate studies and research through collections in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, Integrated Sciences and Engineering Library, Music Reserve Lab, and its website, the UMass Amherst Digital Library. An extensive collection of electronic services and resources is available 24 hours a day at www.library.umass.edu.

The W.E.B. Du Bois Library houses materials in the social sciences and the humanities, as well as the Government Documents, East Asian, Map, and Law Collections, and Special Collections and Archives, where the W.E.B. Du Bois collection is located. A reserve reading room and multimedia reserve collection are maintained on the third floor. Most of the science collection is found in the Integrated Sciences and Engineering Library in the Lederle Graduate Research Center.

Present library holdings number more than 5.8 million, including books, scholarly journals, newspapers, maps, musical recordings, and government documents. Numerous periodical indexes and full text databases are available electronically. A current UCard, the University photographic I.D., serves as a library card.

The Five College library catalog provides electronic access to the libraries at the University and the Four Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges). It is the current record of the collections and provides a variety of ways in which to access library holdings information.

The University Library System is a depository for United States government publications; it also receives several categories of pub-lications from the United Nations and houses publications of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Library is an official U.S. Patent and Trademark Depository Library.

Reference librarians are available in person, online, and by telephone to answer questions and provide assistance in using the collections. A virtual reference service provides around-the-clock reference librarian assistance in real time via the web. The librarians can supply information on course-related library instruction, database searches, interlibrary loan, document delivery, and the services available through the University Library System's membership in various library consortia. Fully equipped electronic classrooms are available for group instruction.

The library catalog and other information about the Library System may be found on the Library's home page: www.library.umass.edu.