The Georgetown University Library is the

library system A library consortium is any cooperative association of libraries that coordinates resources and/or activities on behalf of its members, whether they are school, public, academic, special libraries and/or information centers. Consortia exist on a v ...

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

The library's holdings now contain approximately 3.5 million volumes housed in seven university buildings across 11 separate collections.

History

The Georgetown University Library was created with a donation of over 100 volumes of books in 1796 by

Louis William Valentine Dubourg Louis William Valentine DuBourg (french: Louis-Guillaume-Valentin DuBourg; 10 January 1766 – 12 December 1833) was a French Catholic prelate and Sulpician missionary to the United States. He built up the church in the vast new Louisiana Terri ...

, the third President of Georgetown College.

Facilities

Lauinger Library

The library's largest building, the Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library, is located on Georgetown's main campus and holds the majority of the library system's collections.

Blommer Science Library

Blommer Science Library is located in the Reiss Science building, on Georgetown's main campus. It stores materials for undergraduate and graduate study in biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and physics.

Woodstock Theological Library

The Woodstock Theological Library is one of the oldest Catholic theological libraries in the United States, having been founded in 1869. The library moved to Georgetown in 1974, accompanying the Woodstock Theological Center, which closed in 2013, although the library remains in existence.

School of Continuing Studies Downtown Campus Library

The School of Continuing Studies Downtown Library opened with the move of Georgetown's School of Continuing Studies to a new Downtown campus in 2013. The library offers course reserve materials and provides a pickup location for materials from other libraries.

Bioethics Research Library

The Bioethics Research Library is located on the second floor of

Healy Hall Healy Hall is a National Historic Landmark and the flagship building of the main campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Constructed between 1877 and 1879, the hall was designed by Paul J. Pelz and John L. Smithmeyer, both of whom also ...

Dahlgren Memorial Library

Dahlgren Memorial Library provides information and digital services and resources to support faculty, staff, and students of the

Georgetown University Medical Center Georgetown University Medical Center is a biomedical research and educational organization that responsible for over 80% of Georgetown University's sponsored research funding and is led by Edward B. Healton, MD, the Executive Vice President for He ...

Riggs Memorial Library

Riggs Memorial Library served as the main library of Georgetown between 1891 and 1970, until it was replaced by Lauinger Library. Riggs library, which is located on the third floor of

, is one of the few existing cast-iron libraries in the country and still serves its original purpose of storing books.

Edward Bennett Williams Law Library

The Williams Law Library is the main library of the

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library

The Wolff International and Comparative Law Library is housed separately from the Williams Law Library in the Hotung International Law Center Building. Its collection focuses on primary and secondary foreign sources, with materials from Australia,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, and other nations. It also has extensive documents from international organizations including the

Permanent Court of International Justice The Permanent Court of International Justice, often called the World Court, existed from 1922 to 1946. It was an international court attached to the League of Nations. Created in 1920 (although the idea of an international court was several cent ...

, the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...

GATT The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its prea ...

, and the Council of Europe.

Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar Library

Maternal and Child Health Library

The Maternal and Child Health Library was founded in 1982 and is part of the Georgetown's National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health.

Collaborations with other library systems

Georgetown is part of the

Washington Research Library Consortium The Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC) was established as a non-profit corporation in 1987 to support and enhance the library and information services of universities in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. It aims to do this through e ...

, a joint initiative by nine universities in the District of Columbia which coordinates access and resources between the nine library systems. Members may borrow books from other libraries in the system and they share off-site storage, among other initiatives.

References

External links

Official website of Georgetown University Library
{{Authority control Libraries in Washington, D.C. University and college academic libraries in the United States

Library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...