| Cornell University Library | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
 | |
| 42°26′49″N76°29′05″W / 42.44703°N 76.48480°W /42.44703; -76.48480 | |
| Location | Ithaca, New York, U.S. |
| Type | Academic library system ofCornell University |
| Established | 1866[1] |
| Branches | 16 |
| Collection | |
| Items collected | more than 8 million printed volumes and over a millionebooks, 120,000periodical titles, 8.5 millionmicrofilms andmicrofiches, more than 71,000 cubic feet (2,000 m3) of manuscripts, and close to 500,000 other materials, includingmotion pictures,DVDs,sound recordings, andcomputer files.[2] |
| Size | 8 million (2014) |
| Other information | |
| Budget | US$19 million(2023) |
| Director | Elaine L. Westbrooks |
| Employees | around 300 total (2020)[3] |
| Website | www |
TheCornell University Library is thelibrary system ofCornell University. As of 2014, it holds over eight million printed volumes and over a millionebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000periodical titles are available online. It has 8.5 millionmicrofilms andmicrofiches, more than 71,000 cubic feet (2,000 m3) of manuscripts, and close to 500,000 other materials, includingmotion pictures,DVDs,sound recordings, andcomputer files, extensivedigital resources, and the University Archives.[2] It is the 16th-largest library inNorth America, ranked by number of volumes held,[4] and the 13th-largest research library in the U.S. by both titles and volumes held.[5]
The library is administered as an academic division; the University Librarian reports to the universityprovost. The holdings are managed by the Library's subdivisions, which include 16 physical and virtual libraries on the main campus inIthaca, New York, a storage annex in Ithaca for overflow items, the library ofWeill Cornell Medical College, and the archives of the medical college and ofNewYork-Presbyterian Hospital inNew York City, a branch of the medical library servingWeill Cornell in Qatar campus inDoha, and the library of theNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station inGeneva, New York.
TheJohn M. Olin Library is the primary research library for the social sciences and humanities, and theHarold D. UrisLibrary has extensive holdings in the humanities and social sciences. TheAlbert R. Mann Library specializes in agriculture, the life sciences, and human ecology. The Carl M. Kroch Library includes the university's Rare & Manuscript Collections and extensive Asia collections.[6]
The Cornell University Library system initially was a collection of 18,000 volumes stored in Morrill Hall.Daniel Willard Fiske, Cornell's first librarian, andAndrew Dickson White, Cornell University's first president, both willed their entire estates to Cornell University following their deaths. Under Fiske's direction, Cornell's library introduced a number of innovations, including allowing undergraduate students to browse through the books and check them out.
By 1885, the library had installed electric lights and stayed open 12 hours per day (instead of only a few hours per week—as most other libraries at American universities did at the time—just enough time for faculty to check out and return books), which allowed students to use it as a reference library.[7]
The library plays an active role in furthering online archiving of scientific and historical documents. It provides stewardship and partial funding forarXiv.org e-print archive, created atLos Alamos National Laboratory byPaul Ginsparg. arXiv has changed the way many physicists and mathematicians communicate, making theeprint a viable and popular form for announcing new research.
TheProject Euclid initiative, named afterEuclid ofAlexandria, is a resource joining commercial journals with low-cost independent journals in mathematics and statistics. The project is aimed at enabling affordable scholarly communication through the Internet. Besides archival purposes, a primary goal of the project is to facilitate journal searches and interoperability between different publishers.
The Cornell Library Digital Collections are online collections of historical documents. Featured collections include the Database of African-American Poetry, the Historic Math Book Collection, the Samuel May Anti-Slavery Collection, the Witchcraft Collection, and the Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection.
The library houses several rare manuscripts, including one of only five copies ofAbraham Lincoln'sGettysburg Address (1863), the only copy that is privately owned and the only one accompanied both by a letter from Lincoln transmitting the manuscript and by the original envelope addressed andfranked by Lincoln.[8] The library houses cuneiform tablets; a major collection of medieval books and witchcraft trial records; thousands of pamphlets produced during theFrench Revolution; and the correspondence betweenJefferson andLafayette.
It also holds a copy ofThe Birds of America,[9] of which only 120 complete sets are known to exist.[10] The library also has first editions ofCharles Darwin'sOrigin of Species (1859),[11] theBook of Mormon (1830),[12] and ofJane Austen'sPride and Prejudice (1813).[13] The rare manuscript collection also includes a 1st edition copy ofThomas Hobbe'sLeviathan from 1651.
The Rare and Manuscript Collection is housed in the Cornell Library System’s Carl A. Kroch Library. With more than 500,000 printed volumes and 20,000 cubic feet of manuscript materials, the collection is vast and useful to the faculty and staff of Cornell University, as well as the public who can access any of the collection that has been digitized. The collection dates back to the university’s founding in 1865, by the first president of the university Andrew Dickson White. In 1891, the collection received its founder’s 30,000-volume collection. Specifically, the Department of Rare Books was founded in 1951 and was absorbed into the Rare and Manuscript Collection in 1992, the year the current physical location opened its doors.[14] The 14 main collections within the Rare and Manuscript Collection are the: American History & Culture, Architecture & City Planning, Asian History & Culture, Cornell University Archives, Digital Collections, European History & Culture, Food, Wine, and Culinary History, Icelandic History & Culture, Literature & Theater, Moving Images & Sound Recordings, Music, Photographs, Science & Technology, and Sexuality & Gender.[15] The Rare and Manuscript collection houses the largest collection on the French Revolution outside of Paris, the largest collection in North America on European witchcraft, America’s founding collection on the abolitionist movement, and the second largest William Wordsworth Collection.[16]
Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art is a research repository fornew media art. It was founded in 2002 by Timothy Murray, Professor ofComparative Literature and English and Director of the Society for theHumanities.[17] It is located in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University Library and it is named in honor of the lateProf. Rose Goldsen, aSociology Professor atCornell University and an avant-garde critic ofpop culture,mass media andcommunication.The Rose Goldsen Archiveprovides access to detailedarchival material that mirrors the historical changes which have happened innew media art in terms of its technological development and experimentation, throughout the years.[18]
The archive's collections includemultimedia artworks that reflect the transformation ofnew media art practices from analog to disc-based and from there to networked andweb-based application during the past decades.[18] The collections combine artworks produced on CD/ DVD-Rom,VHS/digital video and internet (online and offline holdings) as well as supporting materials, such as unpublished manuscripts and designs, digital and photographic documentation of installations and performances, digital ephemera, interviews, photographs, catalogs, monographs, and resource guides tonew media art.[19]
The general collection consists of various material about audio, sound art, eco and bio art, exhibitions, artist compilations, installations, interactive narrative, poetry, online listserv, internet art journals, performance, theory, video art, and cinema. Among the artists whose work can be found in the general collection areGary Hill,Iimura Takahiko,Ardele Lister,Michael Snow,Janet Cardiff,Chantal Akerman,Jennifer and Kevin McCoy,Shu Lea Cheang, and others. The collection contains work ranging from the 1960s up to the present day.
Apart from the general collection, the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art houses many special collections and fellowship competitions. Some of them are the following:
The Renew Media Fellowships in New Media, an annual competition for interactive dynamic media, was funded by theRockefeller Foundation in New Media Art from 2002. The Goldsen Archive serves as the repository for the digitized copies of this competition material, such as the proposals, slides, artists' portfolios, other supportive material, etc. from 2003 to 2008.[20]
The Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art, a collaboration among the Goldsen Archive, theCharles W. Wason Collection on East Asia at Cornell University Library and the Dongtai Academy of Art inBeijing, China consists of 360 hours of videotape that documentsChinese contemporary art, installation, performance, video, androck n' roll from 1985 to 2002.[21] Some of the artists that are showcased in the collection are Cui Jian, Du Zhenjun,Feng Mengbo,Li Xianting, Lin Yilin,Lu Shengzhong, Mou Sen,Song Dong, Song Yongping,Xu Bing, Yu Xiaofu, Zhang Dali, Zhou Shaobo, Chen Lingyang.[22]
The Yao Jui-Chung Archive of Contemporary Taiwanese Art contains the Taiwanese artistYao Jui-Chung's portfolio, 8,000 images of Contemporary Art Exhibition Postcards and Taiwan performance art.[23]
The "ETC: Experimental Television Center Archives"[24] is a collection with more than 3,000 artisticvideo tapes andDVDs. It contains works by artists from both the contemporary and first generation ofvideo art. The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art has served as a repository for theExperimental Television Center's collection (1969-2011), since 2011. Some of the artists that are showcased in the collection areBarbara Hammer,Gary Hill, Jud Yalkut,Aldo Tambellini,Benton C Bainbridge,Irit Batsry,Alan Berliner,Kristin Lucas,Lynne Sachs,Michael Betancourt,Abigail Child,Laurence Gartel and Barbara Lattanzi,Emergency Broadcast Network,Nam June Paik,Kathy High, etc.[24]
Net Art: The Goldsen Archive provides access to a number ofinternet art collections. It is the off-line repository for theTurbulence.org archive,[25] a project ofNew Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA), the Computerfinearts.com and the Infos 2000. In addition, the Archive serves as an on-line repository for the online journal ofnet.art,CTHEORY Multimedia[26] and theEcopoetics online exhibition.[27]
.jpg)
Because of the fragility and the complexity of the artworks,[28] most of which areborn-digital and many of which areinteractive, the Archive focuses on building archival strategies thatendure the continuous access to all this fragile material. The Goldsen Archive is one of the six international digital art archives dedicated to Preservation and Documentation Strategies; other similar archives areArs Electronica, Tate Intermedia, FACT, computerfinearts.com (which has its repository in Goldsen Archive) and Rhizome Artbase.[29] In addition, the Archive has signed the International Declaration "Media Art Needs Global Networked Organization and Support", sponsored by Media Art History. Org.[30] The Goldsen Archive has completed aNational Endowment for the Humanities- funded preservation initiative that aims to make access to complex interactive and digital-born media artworks simple and more reliable, which will allow these artworks to be used and viewed on modern computers.[31]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
