Africana

The Africana Collection of the MSU Library has become one of the largest in the United States, having been built up since 1960 to support the broad faculty involvement in different projects on the continent, including research and development.^[2] In the last few years the MSU program about Africa has been consistently rated among the top one or two programs in the country, both the number of faculty involved and the number of doctoral dissertations produced. The Library has 2 full-time professional Africana librarians, both of them holding doctorates in African Studies, who provide reference assistance to a wide range of faculty and students at MSU and elsewhere. The librarians are also very involved in national cooperative projects.^[2]

The Library collection is roughly 270,000 books, pamphlets, maps and microform units covering all disciplines there is an emphasis on the socio-economic development and history of sub-Saharan Africa, with special emphases (reflecting faculty interests) on Ethiopia/Eritrea, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Sahel region of West Africa, and Nigeria (especially the Eastern Region). Library materials come from all African countries (less so for North Africa) are collected at a high level and from all historical periods.

In 1999 it launched the open access African e-Journals Project (OCLC 216849920).

Cesar Chavez Collection

The Cesar E. Chavez Collection is an interdisciplinary browsing collection consisting of titles in a variety of formats, research levels and locations on Chicano and Boricua Studies. Chavez Collection materials in other locations require the storage, access/viewing facilities and services not available in an open shelves collection. The main part of this collection is located on the first floor, west wing lobby of the Main Library. This browsing collection is reinforced throughout the Libraries system by other titles in the main stacks collection and various branch collections.^[7]

The collection is representative of Chavez's life. It reflects his commitment to unions and labor, non-violence, truth, respect and an appreciation of diversity, education and his cultura. Chavez was a frequent visitor to the Lansing area, and as such, the collection also reflects the Midwest presence of migrant farmworkers.^[7]

Digital & Multimedia Center

The Digital and Multimedia Center is the MSU Library's internal digitization facility and media center. In addition to offering online collections, representing many books and journals digitized by DMC, a set of over 10,000 multimedia items are held and are available for check out. These include theatrical movies and video games that can be used in the DMC. DMC also assists in obtaining permissions from copyright holders for MSU faculty who need to use protected materials in courses and academic projects.^[8]

Music

The Music Library is located in the west wing of the Main Library on the fourth floor. It houses the collections for:

• Music (scores, recordings, books, periodicals, reference works and classical music, with strong collections in jazz and ethnomusicology.

Art Library

The Art Library is located on the third floor of the west wing of the Main Library. It houses art books and periodicals.

Government Documents

The Government Documents Library is the Main Library location for publications of the United States government, the Canadian government, the State of Michigan, the United Nations and many other international intergovernmental organizations. It contains over 3 million documents in paper, microformat, and electronic formats. A significant portion of the collection is presently uncataloged and, therefore, does not appear in the Libraries' catalog.^[9]

Map Library

The Map Library, located on the 2nd floor of the east wing of the Main Library, houses a collection of general and thematic maps and atlases for most areas of the world. The collection consists of approximately 200,000 sheet maps and 4,000 atlases, gazetteers and other reference aids including wall maps, globes, CDs and Internet-accessible resources. The collection is especially strong in Michigan topics, United States, Canada, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, though all areas are collected at some level.^[11]

The Brunnschweiler Geography Library Endowment Fund was established in 1993 by Dr. Tamara Brunnschweiler for the acquisition and preservation of geography materials. Purchases from this fund are often old and rare maps and atlases relating to the MSU Libraries' mission.^[11]

Rovi Media Collection

In 2015 the Rovi Corporation donated more than 850,000 movies, CDs and video games to the MSU Libraries, this collection is now the largest media collection in the United States. The archive consists of CDs that have been commercially available in the United States since the early 1990s and includes some releases imported from Europe. The DVD collection, which was started the year DVDs were introduced, similarly represents the vast majority of commercially released DVDs in the United States. The games archive focuses primarily on console games and PC from 1993 to 2014 and includes a few titles dating back to the early '80s. Some of the materials from the collection are available to the MSU community through the MSU Libraries catalog and to Michigan residents through MeLCat, the Michigan e-library catalog.

Turfgrass Information Center

The Turfgrass Information Center (TIC), a specialized unit at the Michigan State University Libraries (MSU), contains the most comprehensive publicly available collection of turfgrass educational materials in the world. TIC has over 250,000 records in its primary database, the Turfgrass Information File (TGIF).^[12]

In the 1960s, the Michigan State University (MSU) Library began to collect printed turfgrass materials. In 1968, the personal collection of the late O.J. Noer, pioneer turf agronomist, was added to the library holdings through the O.J. Noer Foundation. Later gifts have included the Noer/Milorganite® Image Collection (on indefinite loan), the Scotts Company Archive, and most significantly, the James B Beard Turfgrass Library Collection. Today, the combined collection is recognized as the most extensive public collection of turfgrass material in existence.^[12]

Between 1983 and 1992, the United States Golf Association (USGA) Turfgrass Research Program supported the development of the USGA Turfgrass Information File (TGIF). Using the Noer Collection as a foundation, TGIF was designed to systematically inventory published turf research and make the bibliographic information available via a computerized database. The TGIF database is accessible online through the Web. With over 250,000 searchable items using over 300,000 keywords, these resources cover the full scope of the turfgrass industry.^[12]

This database monitors over 1,000 journals and magazines, research reports, and conference proceedings. In addition, the database includes records for extension bulletins, books and book chapters, technical reports, theses and dissertations, web documents, published Q & As, scanned golf course plans, and video interviews.^[12]

Vincent Voice Library Collection

The G. Robert Vincent Voice Library, located within the Digital and Multimedia Library, is a collection of over 100,000 hours of spoken word recordings, dating back to 1888. The collection includes the voices of over 500,000 persons from all walks of life. Political and cultural leaders and minor players in the human drama are captured and catalogued to serve the research needs of a local, national and international user base. Clients include students and faculty of Michigan State University, other scholars and researchers, broadcasting networks, news agencies and film, video, and Web production companies.^[13] It is the largest academic voice library in the United States and is part of the Michigan State University Libraries.^[13]

The Murray and Hong Special Collections

The Special Collections Department of the Michigan State University Libraries collects, houses, and preserves rare and unique materials within the MSU Libraries. The Special Collections was formally established in 1962 with the charge to house special materials, as well as to build, preserve, and make accessible important research collections for educational use. The materials cover a vast array of topics, but materials in Special Collections cannot be checked out, they can be used only in the Special Collections reading rooms. Today, the Special Collections holds over 450,000 printed works, numerous manuscript and archival collections, and an extensive collection of ephemera supporting research in popular culture, radicalism, comic art, and gender. Notable rare book collections include early veterinary medicine, eighteenth century British history and culture, modern American literature, cookery, and natural history. The Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection is one of the largest collections of its kind in the world while the Radicalism Collection features extensive holdings on a wide range of political, social, and economic viewpoints.^[14] The oldest printed book in the MSU Libraries is held in Special Collections. Its title is Scriptores Rei Rusticae, and was printed in Venice in 1472, only a short time after the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany about 1455.^[15]

Business Library (William C. Gast)

The William C. Gast Business Library is located in Room 50 of the Law College Building across from the Eppley Center. It is the largest of the branches at MSU Libraries and has three business librarians, two support staff and twenty-five student employees The library provides seating for 450 and has wireless access as well as Internet connections at most tables, carrels and cubicles. There are group study rooms available, as well as cubicles for group use. Laser printing, including color, is available from the computers or laptops through e-token accounts. Room 22 serves as an instruction and computer lab with 28 seats. The branch is open 109 hours each week during the fall and spring semesters.^[21]

John F. Schaefer Law Library

The MSU Law Library is administratively separate from other libraries on campus.^[23] It contains materials of use to students in the MSU College of law, but is also open to other MSU Students and the general public.^[24]

Closed Branch Libraries