Georgia Library Spotlight
Emory University Libraries
Atlanta, Georgia
Creativity and collaboration energize the Emory Libraries and inform the work we do. As the intellectual hub of Emory University, we promote scholarly conversation and celebrate the joy of discovery with distinctive collections, digital innovations, evolving services, technology-rich facilities, and engaging public programs.
A drive to connect students, faculty, and researchers across the campus and around the world takes place throughout the Emory Libraries, which include the Robert W. Woodruff Library and libraries for health sciences, law, theology, business, and Oxford College. Along with approximately 3.7 million volumes, we offer thousands of electronic information resources, including more than 56,000 e-journal titles.
Our Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) welcomes students, scholars, and other visitors to browse rare books, read original letters and manuscripts, and listen to rare recordings. MARBL is recognized throughout the academic and cultural community for its modern literary archives and manuscript collections, notable African American collections, one-of-a-kind historical materials, and other major manuscript and rare book holdings. An essential destination for humanities scholars, MARBL includes the papers of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, former Poet Laureate of Great Britain Ted Hughes, and Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney; the archive of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a 75,000-volume collection of rare and first editions of modern and contemporary poetry.
When Booker Prize-winner Sir Salman Rushdie chose MARBL to house his archive, it became the most comprehensive digital collection a major writer has ever placed in a research library. Our Rushdie archive attracts worldwide attention and media coverage for the ways it explores new technology frontiers. Much of the Emory Libraries’ innovative work in digital humanities takes place in our Digital Scholarship Commons (DiSC), which offers faculty members and graduate students the space, expertise, and project management assistance they need to develop innovative multidisciplinary projects.
In a YouTube video, Emory students describe the Emory Libraries as a social learning space and their favorite place to study on campus. Our subject librarians and liaisons support more than forty-five academic departments and programs across the University, with expertise on everything from East Asian studies to environmental studies. Classes, workshops and seminars provide instruction in writing, research and web skills, and strengthen our mission to serve on the front lines of information literacy.
We also offer a calendar of free programs and events that are open to the public and contribute to the cultural life of the greater community. Our poetry readings, authors’ talks, and gallery exhibitions – as well as our strong presence in the Decatur Book Festival – connect us with a broad circle of book lovers who enjoy first-hand experiences with our resources. Past events have included such literary icons as Robert Pinksy, Mary Oliver and Billy Collins.
More information about us is available in our award-winning Report to the Community and MARBL magazine, as well as on our staff-produced blog and on Facebook and Twitter. The Emory Libraries preserve our intellectual heritage and advance the discovery and transmission of knowledge for students and scholars of today and tomorrow. We invite you to join us.