Academic Facilities

University Library

University Librarian

Karin A. Trainer

Deputy University Librarian

Marvin F. Bielawski

Associate University Librarian

Kevin P. Barry, Public Services (acting)

Jane Bryan, Interlibrary Services

Dorothy Pearson, Administrative Services

Jan Powell, Collection Development (acting)

Ben Primer, Rare Books and Special Collections

Richard J. Schulz, Technical Services

 

From ancient cuneiform tablets to datafiles, electronic journals, and DVDs, Princeton University Library’s collections are continually updated to support the teaching and research interests of the University community. Since its founding more than 250 years ago, the library system has grown from a collection of 474 volumes in one room of Nassau Hall to holdings in 15 buildings across the campus. The collections include more than six million printed volumes, five million manuscripts, three million microforms, and two million multimedia and other items. The library increases its holdings by about 10,000 volumes each month.

With more than 70 miles of shelving, the Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library is the largest building in the system, and houses most of the humanities and social sciences collections. Among the services concentrated there are general humanities and social sciences reference, interlibrary services, and microforms. Other campus libraries support specialized subject collections: architecture and urban planning (School of Architecture building); art and archaeology (Marquand); astrophysics (Peyton Hall); biology, mathematics, physics, and statistics (Fine Hall); chemistry (Frick Laboratory); demography and public affairs (Wallace Hall); East Asian collections (Frist Campus Center); engineering (Friend Center); geology (Fine Hall Annex); music (Woolworth); plasma physics (C-Site on the Forrestal Campus); and psychology (Green Hall). In addition, the University Archives and the Public Policy Papers are maintained at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. More than four dozen expert reference and subject specialists are available to assist patrons who use the University’s Library’s collections.

Infrequently used library materials are carefully stored in one of two annex libraries or in a sophisticated new facility off campus. Books can be recalled from these sites to any campus library, and usually are delivered within 24 hours.

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, located in Firestone and Mudd libraries, contains primary-source materials. The holdings span five millennia and five continents, and include approximately 200,000 rare or significant printed works; 30,000 linear feet of textual materials (ranging from cuneiform tablets to manuscripts of contemporary authors); a wealth of prints, drawings, photographs, maps, coins, and other visual materials; and the Cotsen Children’s Library, a significant, wide-ranging collection of 23,000 illustrated children’s books and related items. Among the Public Policy Papers at Mudd Library are important collections that document the involvement of individuals and organizations in the areas of 20th-century American foreign policy, international development, jurisprudence, journalism, and public policy formation. Because of the value of these items, they may be used only under supervision in reading rooms at each facility.

In keeping pace with developments in electronic resources, the University Library now offers more than 600 databases and more than 20,000 electronic journals. Campuswide access to electronic versions of standard bibliographic citation databases is available, and the University Library subscribes to electronic versions of scholarly journals and general-interest magazines as well. It spends more than $3 million each year to provide Princeton students, faculty, and staff with licensed, restricted, high-quality e-resources.

Office of Information Technology

The Princeton community has access to a varied and powerful computing environment supported by the Office of Information Technology (OIT). OIT provides Dormnet, a fiber-optic-based network that brings high-speed data connections to the rooms of the Graduate College (including the Annexes) and Butler, Hibben, Magie, and Lawrence Apartments. Wireless networking is also available in the Graduate College. For students who do not live in housing wired for network access, dial-in remote access is available and a laptop computer can be registered for use while on campus; computers used only periodically on campus can access the Visitor Wireless network without registration. Although dial-in remote access is at a significantly lower speed than a Dormnet connection, it provides access to the same network resources. Commercial high-speed services are also available in the Princeton area.

The University, working with strategic computer vendors, offers a Student Computer Initiative (SCI) program that provides students with the opportunity to purchase a fully configured laptop computer at competitive prices. SCI computers are configured for the Princeton environment and are fully supported by OIT’s HelpDesk, Solutions Center, hardware repair center, Student Computing Services, and Residential Computing Consultants.

Students have access to more than 250 workstations in the two dozen OIT-supported campus clusters. High-quality printing is also available in the clusters or over the campus network from students’ own computers. Clusters are located in the Graduate College, Butler, Hibben, Magie, and Lawrence Apartments; as well as two dozen other campus locations. The campus clusters contain a mix of Windows-based Intel computers and Apple Macintoshes running OS X. Software on cluster computers includes basic productivity tools such as word processors, information-access tools used to explore the World Wide Web and the Internet, special software needed for the many classes in which computing is integral to learning, and sophisticated programs for use in research.

Each student has a NetID, an identifier that enables the use of e-mail and allows access to a central printing service and to Unix servers. OIT support for scientific and engineering computing includes Solaris and Linux 64-bit central computer servers and a number of computational (beowulf) clusters, including an Intel cluster (64 processors) and IBM BlueGene cluster (2048 processors). Students have access over the network to specialized resources such as the online library systems. Multiple high-speed connections to the Internet permit students to take full advantage of the wide range of networked resources.

OIT Academic Services provides consulting and training on the application of multimedia and instructional technology in teaching and research.

Additional OIT services include support in the use of selected software packages, maintenance of the University Language Resource Center and video library, and support for instructional technologies in classrooms and over the campus network. Clusters around campus provide students with access to high-speed resources, such as streaming video, for use in language and other courses. The New Media Center provides state-of-the-art computing resources and walk-in consulting support for the development of multimedia documents and applications.

OIT provides a number of information-access servers, including World Wide Web servers, on which students can have their own Web pages. Specialized facilities allow students to write programs that can be accessed and executed over the World Wide Web. A course management system server (Blackboard) provides a Web page for every University course.

Foreign language, educational programming, and selected cable TV channels are broadcast over the campus network to dorm rooms on a subscription basis, and to public viewing rooms, classrooms, and the Language Resource Center.

OIT also provides state-of-the-art printing services, including binding and xerography, and local telephone and voice-mail service to the campus, including dormitory rooms.

For general information about campus and network resources, contact OIT’s Help Desk at (609) 258-4357 (HELP), or visit the OIT Web site at www.princeton.edu/oit.

Art Museum

The Princeton University Art Museum began with the presentation of the Trumbull-Prime Collection of pottery and porcelain, a gift made contingent upon the erection of the original building, which was completed in 1888. The collections grew in size and scope under the direction of Professor Allan Marquand, founder of the Department of Art and Archaeology, and of the museum, and his successors. Growth has been possible through purchasing funds, including the Fowler McCormick ’21 Fund bequeathed in 1973, and through generous gifts, which often have come from the private collections of the donors.

The collections run the gamut, from ancient to contemporary art, and, geographically, concentrate on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, China, and the United States.

There is a fine collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, including early ceramics, small bronzes, and mosaics from the University’s excavations at Antioch. Medieval Europe is represented by sculpture, painting, metalwork, and stained glass, an outstanding example of which is a stained-glass window from Chartres Cathedral.

A large collection of paintings, supplemented by sculpture, reflects the trends of the Renaissance, with emphasis on the Italian school. The French school predominates in 18th- and 19th-century painting and sculpture. American art is represented by painting, sculpture, furniture, and decorative arts.

The museum has an outstanding collection of prints and drawings, ranging in time through several centuries and geographically through many schools. Of particular note are the nearly complete set of prints by Jacques Callot and a large group of Italian drawings. The now considerable collection of original photographs was established in 1971, with the gift of the David Hunter McAlpin Collection, and enlarged with the establishment of the Minor White Archive, which the artist bequeathed in 1976.

In the Far Eastern field, Princeton has a notable collection of Chinese paintings, sculpture, bronze ceremonial vessels, and examples of the minor arts such as bronze mirrors, clay tomb figures, and a celebrated collection of snuff bottles. Japanese and Indian pieces augment the collection. Art from Central and South America includes several pieces of great importance. A small but important collection of African art is also on view.

During the 1970s the museum increased its holdings in 20th-century art, adding works by Duchamp, Johns, Motherwell, Segal, and Frank Stella, among others. Not housed in the museum but among its collections is the John B. Putnam, Jr., Memorial Collection of contemporary sculpture, with works by modern masters such as Calder, Lipchitz, Moore, Nevelson, Noguchi, Picasso, David Smith, and others, located on the University campus.

Many exhibitions are coordinated with the curriculum of the Department of Art and Archaeology. In addition, the museum organizes major exhibitions, with works of art coming to Princeton from all over the world. In recent years these have included art of the Olmec, the great Mesoamerican civilization; drawings by the modernist architect Le Corbusier; Roman sculpture and early Greek art; religious paintings by Anthony van Dyck; the watercolors of Paul Cézanne; and a ground-breaking exhibition of the art of China’s Han dynasty.

After extensive renovations and the addition of the Mitchell Wolfson, Jr.’63 Wing in 1988, a conservation studio for paintings, a laboratory to treat works on paper, seminar rooms for courses using museum objects, open study-storage for ancient art, a photography study center, and facilities for the disabled were added.

Index of Christian Art

The Index of Christian Art records works of Christian art produced before the year 1400 (extended in the case of Morgan and Firestone libraries’ manuscripts to the start of the 16th century), classifying them both as monuments and by subject matter. Thus it is possible to study all the stained glass of Chartres Cathedral, or all the representations—in glass, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, painting, and other mediums—of a scene such as the Nativity, a figure such as Saint Cecilia, personifications such as the Virtues and Vices, or motifs such as the Wheel of Fortune. The monuments file consists of almost 200,000 photographs; the iconographic file contains more than 650,000 cards. The Index, located in McCormick Hall, is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the academic year, and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. from mid-June until mid-September. It is closed on weekends, major holidays, and for two weeks at the winter recess. Copies of the Index are located in the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection of Harvard University in Washington, D.C.; the Library of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands; and the Getty Research Library in Los Angeles. Further details can be found at ica.princeton.edu.

James Forrestal Campus

The Forrestal campus, formerly the Forrestal Research Center, is a major University facility for research and instruction. A memorial to the first secretary of defense, charter trustee of the University, and a member of the Class of 1915, it is located on a 275-acre tract on U.S. Route 1, east of Harrison Street and three miles from Nassau Hall. Major laboratories are those of the aerospace sciences and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

The Forrestal Campus is an integral part of the University. It has neither a separate faculty nor a separate student body, and a number of departments are represented there: astrophysical sciences, chemical engineering, chemistry, geosciences, and mechanical and aerospace engineering. Much of the work concerns the study of fundamental phenomena that take place at high speeds, high temperatures, high pressures, or high-energy levels. Every project reflects the active, continuing scholarly interests of one or more members of the faculty.

The federal government’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory is also located at the Forrestal campus, and members of the laboratory’s scientific staff collaborate with University faculty in a program of graduate study (see the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences). The laboratory is a research institute that investigates the physical mechanisms controlling the behavior of the oceans and the atmosphere. Its facility includes two supercomputers.

PPPL is a major international center for research in the closely related areas of plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear fusion. Its major goal is the development of a hydrogen-and-lithium nuclear-fueled system to produce electrical energy with minimal environmental consequences and in amounts sufficient to supply the world’s electrical power needs for thousands of years. At the laboratory, a growing family of highly sophisticated large, experimental devices, together with extensive engineering and computational facilities, is used to attack the fundamental physics problems underlying toroidal magnetic containment of the fusion plasma. Simultaneously, a broad program of graduate research in plasma physics is carried out under the aegis of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences, and fusion reactor technology under the Program in Plasma Science and Technology (see those sections of this catalog).

Programs in the Arts

The University offers three programs in the creative and performing arts: creative writing, visual arts, and theater and dance. The primary aim of these programs is to allow talented students to work under professional supervision while pursuing a regular liberal arts course of study.

Although the programs are designed largely for undergraduates, graduate students are welcome to participate when space permits and are encouraged to investigate the broad range of subjects in which instruction is offered. The Program in Creative Writing includes the writing of fiction, poetry, and translation; the Program in Visual Arts offers ceramics, digital photography, drawing, film and video, film history and criticism, issues in contemporary art, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture; and the Program in Theater and Dance includes acting, directing, the composition and performing of modern dance, and playwriting.