Suddenly the library collection was no longer limited to what materials were located within its own walls. Now students had access to more than one million books, plus other texts, all of which they could borrow through the inter-library loan system. It s easy to see now where that would lead. It met the needs and purposes for which it had been designed. But it was designed to grow, and construction of the L. Thomas Melly Academic Center, completed and dedicated this past May, allowed the Colleges to update the building from the technologies of the seventies, which then seemed so advanced, to the technological wonders of today, while hopefully having as much foresight as the planners of the seventies had.
Books are still an integral part of the collection.
This is evident with a holding of 340,000 volumes. The number of books being purchased is not dropping. The number of paper periodicals is not growing the current subscription number is 1,307 but that is because the new subscriptions to electronic periodicals provide the same information in a much smaller package. Current electronic subscriptions number 1,539. The total number of acquisitions per year is currently 7,000.