The West Virginia University Libraries at

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State College ...

consist of seven individual libraries located on various WVU campuses. The Downtown Campus library is on the WVU Downtown Campus. The Evansdale Library is located on the WVU's Evansdale campus. The Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Library is located on WVU's Medical Campus. The George R. Farmer, Jr. Law Library is located on WVU's Law Campus. The West Virginia & Regional History Center is located on the Downtown Campus inside the Wise Library. Libraries not on the WVU campus include the Mary F. Shipper Library at Potomac State College in Keyser and the Beckley Library at the WVU Institute of Technology.

Wise Downtown Library

The Downtown Library Complex at

was built in 1931. The original campus library was located in Stewart Hall, a Romanesque style building that could not accommodate the growing student population. University President John Roscoe Turner, among other university supporters, sought to build a new library. The University Library was then built on the former property of Israel Charles White, which today stands between White Hall and Clark Hall. In 1984, the University Library was renamed Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library to honor Charles C. Wise, Jr., a lawyer and former student body president of WVU that had donated of land to the WVU Foundation. A dedication ceremony was held on October 1, 1984. In December 1996, a meeting was held to discuss a multimillion-dollar renovation and addition to the Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library. Located in the front of the original library, this addition encompassed with five new levels added (four above ground). The Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library and the new addition are connected by an atrium. A large skylight filters sunlight into the room onto the original facade of the library. The library was completed in the spring of 2002. The building is now considered two separate libraries – Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library and Downtown Library. Since the origin of the Downtown/Wise Library, the complex has gained four floors of study rooms and computer workstations, rare collections housed in the Wise section of the library, and a coffee shop. Services offered include inter-library loan and services and community access. The Libraries hired a

Wikipedian in residence A Wikipedian in residence or Wikimedian in residence (WiR) is a Wikipedia editor, a Wikipedian (or Wikimedian), who accepts a placement with an institution, typically an art gallery, library, archive, museum, cultural institution, learned socie ...

in 2015 to focus on the gender gap on Wikipedia and to increase the number of articles on women from West Virginia.

Special collections

West Virginia and Regional History Center

The

West Virginia and Regional History Center The West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC), is the largest archival collection housing documents and manuscripts involving West Virginia and the surrounding central Appalachian region. Because of name changes over the years, it is some ...

, the world's largest collection of West Virginia-related research material, is in the Wise Library on the Downtown Campus. The collection includes over 4.5 million

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

documents, 30,000 books, 15,000 pamphlets, 1,200

newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

, 100,000 photographs and prints, 5,000 maps, and 25,000

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

s, oral histories, films and

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

recordings. The Center has an online digital collection, photographic archives, a rare books room, and various special collections including the International Association for Identification's library, which also has a digital collection, often called simply the "West Virginia Collection".

Appalachian Collection

Located in the James V. and Ann Pozega Milano Reading Room on the third floor of Wise Library, the Appalachian Collection consists of literature of the 13-state Appalachian region. The collection is named after the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

which run from

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. Subjects include cultural stories of coal miners, music, pollution, crafts, traditions, wildlife, religion, and social conditions.

Government Information Services

Located on the first floor of the library in the Research Services department, Government Information Services includes publications from the state and federal government. Federal publications are gathered and processed at the Downtown Library and sent to other libraries by subject.

Literary Landmark

In October 2006, the Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library at WVU was made a Literary Landmark by the Friends of the Library Association U.S.A. (now United for Libraries) in partnership with WVU Libraries, in recognition of the university's connection with West Virginia poet laureate Louise McNeill Pease and its efforts to preserve her writings and personal papers in the

. The plaque, hung in the atrium, reads:

Gallery

Downtown_wvu_library.png, WVU Downtown Library Original wise library.png, Original Wise Library exterior within the Downtown Library Evansdale.png, WVU Evansdale Library Health science library.png, WVU Health Sciences Library Wvu law library3.jpg, WVU Law Library WVU History & Regional Center.jpg, WVU History & Regional Center Mary F. Shipper Library.png, Mary F. Shipper Library

References

External links

* {{Authority control West Virginia University campus Libraries in West Virginia University and college academic libraries in the United States Library buildings completed in 1931 Library buildings completed in 2002 2002 establishments in West Virginia