For the second consecutive year, the UT Libraries ranks 23rd among public research university libraries in the United States, according to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), a coalition of 124 major research libraries in the US and Canada, including the National Library of Medicine and the Library of Congress.
UT Libraries rose to 42nd among all public and private university libraries on measures of investment in collections and staffing—an improvement of two places from last year’s ranking.
“We get excited about the more than two million visitors we see each year,” said Steve Smith, dean of libraries. “But the ARL rankings remind us of what our library users can do both in the libraries and beyond.”
As reflected in the most recent ARL statistics, UT Libraries users can download research articles from 133,000 e-journals and other electronic periodicals, browse through one million e-books, or check out some of the 3.6 million print volumes on the libraries’ shelves.
“We are constantly working to improve so that we can offer the best to our Volunteer family of students and researchers,” Smith said.
ARL gathers and publishes statistics annually on the collections, expenditures, and staffing of member libraries. The most recent data describes the 2017–18 academic year. UT has been a member of the association for more than 50 years.
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CONTACT:
Brian Canever (865-974-0937, bcanever@utk.edu)
Martha Rudolph (865-974-4273, mrudolph2@utk.edu)