More than seventy faculty members belong to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, or the National Academy of Engineering. Ten scientists have received the National Medal of Science, and more than sixty have received the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award while on the faculty. Academic resources on the campus are among the finest in the world. The University Library holds the largest public university collection in the world, housing almost 17 million items in the main library and in the more than forty departmental libraries and units. The library's computerized cataloging system was the first in the world to serve as the primary access to a large academic library.
Users can access the collections from hundreds of computer terminals placed throughout the campus.
Students have access to 3,000 computer terminals in classrooms, residence halls, and campus libraries for use in classroom instruction, study, and research. Students and scholars find the University an ideal place to conduct cross-disciplinary research. The most visible example of the University's commitment to such study is the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology , where twenty research groups from nearly two dozen University departments are examining living and nonliving systems from microscopic organisms to the complex computing technologies integral to the understanding of artificial intelligence. The University has a fundamental commitment to undergraduate education. About 26,800 undergraduate students are enrolled in nine undergraduate divisions, which together offer some 4,000 courses in more than 150 fields of study.