Fast Facts About the Library

Did you know that the Library:

• Owns over 2.1 million items and circulates over 140,000 of them every year.
• Is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, a consortium of the top 120 research libraries in the country.
• Represents at least 25 languages in its collections.
• Owns over 130,000 maps, atlases, and aerial photographs.
• Added nearly 11,000 books to its collection last year.
• Lends about 16,000 books and articles to other libraries every year, and borrows almost 12,000.
• Circulates a wider range of DVDs and videos (over 8,000) than any library in Long Island - including every Shakespeare play, dozens of silent era films, feature films from Mexico, Iran, China and Iceland, the first animated films, lectures and readings by Nobel Prize winning scientists and world-renowned authors.
• Has, with nearly 4 million rolls, one of the country’s largest microfilm collections.
• Assists patrons in searching over 7 million patents in the U.S. Patent Office databases.
• Spends over $2.5 million a year to lease online research databases and over 60,000 electronic journals.
• Makes all its electronic resources available to every Stony Brook student and employee anywhere in the world.
• Has a Special Collections that houses over 25,000 rare books, 500 collections, 800 maps, and the University Archives. Highlights include the papers of U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits, Environmental Defense Fund, William Butler Yeats and an extensive Long Island Collection.