Libraries

UAF has two libraries on the Fairbanks campus and libraries on four rural campuses. Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, on the Fairbanks campus, is the largest academic library in the state, with more than a million volumes. The Keith B. Mather Library, also on the Fairbanks campus, holds collections in the geological and biological sciences and Alaska’s U.S. Patent and Trademark Office depository. Both libraries offer wireless and wired networking, public computer terminals, and designated quiet study spaces with natural lighting. Rasmuson Library also has group study rooms and a secure 23-hour study space with a student computer lab.

Rasmuson and Mather libraries provide extensive reference and instructional services for students. Library faculty and staff help students conduct library research using print materials and online databases and collections. The library information and research course, LS F101X, is part of the core curriculum and gives students an introduction to effective methods of identifying, locating and evaluating information resources.

Online catalogs and databases provide access to library resources at UAF libraries and, through interlibrary loan, worldwide. The library website is a gateway to more than 300 online resources, with broad coverage in the sciences, humanities and social sciences, management, and engineering. Web-based indexes and collections link to full-text articles from more than 60,000 periodical titles. Additional web-based resources include reference tools, electronic books, specialized sources for Arctic and polar information, and indexes to special formats such as government documents and dissertations. ScholarWorks, the University of Alaska online institutional repository, makes theses, dissertations, articles and other scholarly works by UA students and faculty available to the public.

Rasmuson Library is a federal documents depository and receives about one-third of the titles available for selection from the U.S. Government Printing Office. Special collections in the library include the internationally recognized Alaska and Polar Regions Collections and Archives, which houses historical books, periodicals, documents, manuscripts, photographs, film, oral histories and maps. APRCA hosts Alaska’s digital archives and continues to digitize archival materials to make more specialized materials available to the public.

Get more Rasmuson Library information at 907-474-7481, AskRasmusonLibrary@uaf.libanswers.com or http://library.uaf.edu.