page_title: Academic library
hierarchical_section_title: Academic library
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden in 1694. La nouvelle bibliothèque, from Les delices de Leide, une des célèbres villes de l'Europe, Leiden: P. van der Aa, 1712.
context_page_description: An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution and serves two complementary purposes: to support the curriculum, and to support the research of the university faculty and students. It is unknown how many academic libraries there are worldwide. An academic and research portal maintained by UNESCO links to 3,785 libraries. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are an estimated 3,700 academic libraries in the United States. In the past, the material for class readings, intended to supplement lectures as prescribed by the instructor, has been called reserves. In the period before electronic resources became available, the reserves were supplied as actual books or as photocopies of appropriate journal articles. Modern academic libraries generally also provide access to electronic resources.
  Academic libraries must determine a focus for collection development since comprehensive collections are not feasible. Librarians do this by identifying the needs of the faculty and student body, as well as the mission and academic programs of the college or university.
context_section_description: An academic library is a library  that is attached to a higher education institution and serves two complementary purposes: to support the curriculum, and to support the research of the university faculty and students. It is unknown how many academic libraries there are worldwide. An academic and research portal maintained by UNESCO links to 3,785 libraries. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are an estimated 3,700 academic libraries in the United States. In the past, the material for class readings, intended to supplement lectures as prescribed by the instructor, has been called reserves. In the period before electronic resources became available, the reserves were supplied as actual books or as photocopies of appropriate journal articles. Modern academic libraries generally also provide access to electronic resources.
  Academic libraries must determine a focus for collection development since comprehensive collections are not feasible. Librarians do this by identifying the needs of the faculty and student body, as well as the mission and academic programs of the college or university. When there are particular areas of specialization in academic libraries, these are often referred to as niche collections. These collections are often the basis of a special collection department and may include original papers, artwork, and artifacts written or created by a single author or about a specific subject.
  There is a great deal of variation among academic libraries based on their size, resources, collections, and services. The Harvard University Library is considered to be the largest strict academic library in the world, although the Danish Royal Library—a combined national and academic library—has a larger collection. Another notable example is the University of the South Pacific which has academic libraries distributed throughout its twelve member countries. The University of California operates the largest academic library system in the world, it manages more than 34 million items in 100 libraries on ten campuses.
caption: University Library Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1694. La nouvelle bibliothèque, from Les delices de Leide, une des célèbres villes de l'Europe, Leiden: P. van der Aa, 1712
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