Company Profile
University of Florida, Smathers Libraries
Company Overview
The libraries of the University of Florida form the largest information resource system in the state of Florida and serve every college and center in the university, including the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) and the Health Science Center. UF’s libraries consist of seven libraries; six of which comprise the George A. Smathers Libraries. The Smathers Libraries actively collaborate with the Legal Information Center, which is a part of the Levin College of Law.
The Smathers Libraries include the following:
- Architecture and Fine Arts Library
- Education Library
- Health Science Center Libraries (UF campus and Borland Library in Jacksonville)
- Library West (Humanities and Social Sciences)
- Marston Science Library
- Smathers Library (Special and Area Studies Collections, Latin American and Caribbean Collection, Map and Imagery Library)
The Smathers Libraries has a large and diverse IT footprint, including nearly 600 publicly accessible computers, numerous specialized scanners, 3D printers and other equipment, iPads and netbooks are available for check-out.
Marston Science Library houses MADE@UF in the Collaboration Commons on the first floor. It is a space to facilitate the use of new technologies including the development of mobile apps, games and use of 3D scanning.
Library faculty and staff
The library staff consists of more than 78 library faculty, 155 professional/technical/clerical staff, 30 Other Personal Services (OPS) staff and 327 student assistants. Librarians at the University of Florida are faculty. All have graduate degrees in Library Science or Information Studies, and/or a graduate degree in a relevant subject area. Some teach for-credit courses and they often make presentations that are incorporated into courses across campus. Library faculty serve the university community in the following roles:
- General and specialized reference
- Faculty and department liaisons, and outreach
- Instruction in library-related classes, in courses and/or personalized one-on-one
- Collection managers and curators
- Subject specialists
- Principle Investigators
The Smathers Libraries has built a number of nationally significant research collections, mainly supporting graduate research programs. Among them are the following:
Latin American and Caribbean Collection, which is among the largest and most distinguished collections of Latin American materials in the U.S. and has been described as the finest collection of Caribbeana in the world.
The Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica (located on the first floor of Library West), which is the largest collection of its kind in the southeastern U.S. Its diversified holdings of uncommon research materials in English, Hebrew and other languages support scholarship in virtually every aspect of the Jewish experience.
Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, which is among the world's finest collections of historical literature for children with over 120,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the mid-1600s through the present.
Map and Imagery Library, which is an extensive repository of maps, atlases, aerial photographs, and remote sensing imagery with particular collection strengths for the southeastern United States, Florida, Latin America and Africa south of the Sahara.
P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, which is the state's preeminent Floridiana collection and holds the largest North American collection of Spanish colonial documents about the southeastern United States and rich archives of prominent Florida politicians.
The libraries also have particularly strong holdings in architectural preservation and 18th-century American architecture, late 19th- and early-20th-century German state documents, national bibliographies, U.S. Census information, especially in electronic format, and other U.S. documents, the rural sociology of Florida and tropical and subtropical agriculture collections, and English and American literature.
Benefits
http://hr.ufl.edu/benefits/