University Library, California State University Northridge

Oviatt Library

The Oviatt Library (Delmar T. Oviatt Library) serves the California State University, Northridge (CSUN) campus. The library is named for Delmar T. Oviatt who was instrumental in the founding of CSUN. Today it features over 1.2 million volumes in its collection.

===Oviatt Library History and Facts===

Construction on the library was in two parts. The first phase finished on October 24, 1973 and the second nearly doubled the size in 1991 by the addition of east and west wings. The 1994 Northridge Earthquake badly damaged the building forcing the library to close. The core (phase 1) re-opened later that year, but the wings were demolished and reconstructed. The wings re-opened in 2000. A Grand Staircase was alos built at this time.

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Oviatt Library (2009)

The California State University, Northridge's Oviatt Library provides educational, cultural and information services and resources to the students and faculty. Its primary mission is to support and supplement classroom and independent learning; facilitate student and faculty research; and provide students with lifelong skills in identifying, locating, evaluating and synchronizing information.

All library materials are housed in the Delmar T. Oviatt Library, a 234,712-square-foot (21,805.5 m²) state-of-the-art facility. Of note are the Collaboratory with its 175 multipurpose computer workstations, 3 computer equipped library instruction labs, and 150 computer workstations devoted to library information resources. There are over 1,600 seats for in-house study. During Fall and Spring semesters, the building is open 90 hours a week. The Library maintains provides access to electronic information 24 hours a day.

The Oviatt Library has a physical collection containing 1.37 million volumes, of which over one million are books, and over 249,000 bound periodical volumes. The Library subscribes to 28,000 online journals, nearly 2,900 print journals, 200 online databases and nearly 16,700 ebooks. The microform collection contains 3.17 million pieces. There are over 13,200 sound recordings, 11,300 film and video recordings and nearly 60,000 pictures and other graphic materials. The archives and manuscript collection exceeds 4,200 feet (1,300 m) of materials, with nearly 29,700 items housed in Special Collections.

The Library is heavily used with 8.9 million uses of its web pages annually, a gate count of 1.4 million annually, and over half a million interactions per year with Library personnel.