BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library Ranked 3rd in Nation
September 4, 2007
BYU has been ranked for ten years running as the nation’s number one stone-cold sober school by the Princeton Review, a survey of student opinions. But BYU also consistently places in the top five for Best College Library, and this year we’ve come in third, after Harvard and Princeton.
The library is working hard to support our students and our faculty. We appreciate the kind feedback. Over the last few months the library has added streaming music collections, a new self checkout system, a small seminar room in the Special Collections library, and just this summer a new quiet study area, the Honors Reading Room, in the south end of level 3. Even more work is taking place behind the scenes to support digital information systems and long term access to printed materials. We’ll let you know as new things come online for students to use in their studies.
I imagine this ranking is relative to the size of the university, correct? How are these rankings determined? Is there a website we could look at to see the criteria and the scores?
The ranking is determined by the Princeton Review. We do not have their criteria. Interesting question.
This IS good news! That BYU would rank so highly as compared to Eastern schools is great! Any update on what the criteria for the ranking is?
What a blessing for us to have this phenomenal facility, regardless of ranking. I am thankful we have such resources and services available.
I am right there with you Anna. I’m in seminary in TN and I really miss BYU’s library. I just graduated in April and my net ID still works to access full text articles. Anybody know if the days I have to use this resource as an alum are numbered?
You can see the “Best College Libraries” ranking on The Princeton Review site:
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingDetails.asp?CategoryID=1&TopicID=12
or
One thing I appreciate about the HBLL is the L. Tom Perry Special Collections displays and movies. I really enjoyed the “Pearl Harbor and Beyond” exhibit last year, and I loved watching “Gone with the Wind” in the SP theater.
What about usage? I have used the library for more personal reading than for classroom assignments. Are we providing resources that students actually use?
Simon, thank you for asking such a great question. As it happens the library answered around 170,000 questions last year, that includes office visits with subject librarians. We circulated about 700,000 items and we re-shelved hundreds of thousands of items that were used inside the library and placed on the return shelves. The electronic reserve items were used over 100,000 times. I don’t have the numbers for the digital resources but they are popular as well.
I think you’ve noticed why everyone loves the library. It has a vast collection of items for research and yet it is also a nice place to go to read a book.
(P.S. I forgot to mention thousands of digitally streaming songs available through the music library)
Yes, your net ID days are numbered. Mine worked for about eight months after I graduated, but I know others who lost their privileges within one month of graduation. Enjoy it while you can!
Yeah this is great. I can see why and how it is amongst the top three. But princeton and US NEWS etc have pretty weird ranking criterias. The reason why BYU is not in the top 50 academic schools is because of its strong religious affiliation. Many of the ranking teams comprise of Deans of various colleges who have their own bias against mormons and BYU and so BYU gets left out. Another thing is graduation rate: which is pretty less/small/slow in BYU cause a lot of students serve missions thus graduating a year or two later. They take these factors into account too. But if anyone does a fair ranking, with emphasis on academics and sports and not on the exterior, I believe BYU would top the 20 list. I myself transferred from a 34th rank university not in the United States but in the world and although it is 34th in the world and BYU is 80th in the United States only, I’d prefer interchanging the ranking allocation. Go cougars !!!
There are a number of questions about ranking systems and their criteria under discussion in the library community. For example, how do you compare a visit to a web page with a visit to a reference desk? Libraries are always changing and the Harold B. Lee Library is no exception. The most important ranking the library cares about is the one given by each individual patron we work to help.
While I don’t agree that BYU itself should be ranked any higher than it is (I also have great doubts that many deans of other schools would hold a grudge against Mormons–many of them don’t even know or care who we are. We just have a persecution complex), I was quite glad that our library was ranked so high. The HBLL really does have phenomenal resources. One that “news” forgot to mention was that the HBLL is one of the few libraries that gives its undergrads easy access to the Special Collections. I use it all the time and it has proved immensely helpful for my research. Most other schools make their undergrads jump through hoops to use such a fantastic resource. We also have access to LION and EEBO online, which are not only incredibly expensive collections of online literature, but very elitist in who they let subscribe to the collections. Great work HBLL! If I ever have money to donate, it will definitely all go to you.
What upsets me about this ranking is that, with such a highly ranked library, why won’t BYU bring back its Master of Library and Information Science program? I was very disappointed that I had to go to another college to obtain my master’s degree. I think BYU could create an excellent MLIS program. And they would have an incredible resource with their 3rd highest nationally ranked library. They should consider bringing it back–especially since the LDS church is pushing for librarians with MLIS degrees.