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Facilities & Collections
The Information and Library Science Library is the largest collection of its type in the Southeast and provides both depth and breadth in the subject areas of information and library science. The collection, housed in Manning Hall, contains over 95,000 volumes, many of which are specifically focused on the area of youth services, including a large juvenile collection, the main graphic novel collection on campus and a growing collection of Hispanic juvenile titles.
Juvenile Collection
Designed to support courses in children’s literature, young adult literature, school librarianship and children’s librarianship in public libraries, the juvenile collection consists of the Easy collection (currently 5019 volumes), juvenile fiction (over 10,000 volumes), juvenile non-fiction, and juvenile historical (non-circulating). Included in the collection are award winning titles. This collection is also designed to support courses taught in the School of Education.
Graphic Novel Collection
Graphic novels are stories that merge text and illustration in a comic book format. Written for all ages, types of graphic novels include superhero tales, realistic stories, science fiction, fantasy, adventure (futuristic, contemporary, and historical), political satire, adapted classics, biographies, and autobiographies. The collection for the University is housed in the School of Information and Library Science Library in Manning Hall and contains over 750 titles.
Hispanic Juvenile Resources
North Carolina has one of the fastest-growing Hispanic and Latino student populations in the Nation. The School of Information and Library Science Library has increased collection development efforts to address and support the information and literary needs of this growing population. Currently, the collection of juvenile materials includes almost one hundred books written in Spanish or Spanish and English.
The Susan Steinfirst Children’s Book Alcove
Located in the Library Science Library in Manning Hall, the Susan Steinfirst Children’s Book Alcove provides a comfortable reading area for children and their families. Families from the community, children of SILS students and faculty, as well as groups of children from local preschools are frequent visitors to the alcove. It’s not unusual to see an individual child curled up with a good book in one of the “reading eggs.”
The Juvenile Historical Collection
The Juvenile Historical Collection is comprised of over 1300 texts and is housed on the third floor of the SILS library. The collection includes periodicals, works of general fiction, and books from other countries and in other languages. Books from post-revolutionary Russia, pre-World War II Germany, and post-World War II Japan, as well as works from Italy, Spain, Sweden, and France make up the foriegn language portion of the collection. One book of particular significance is Skazka ob Ivanie-tsarevichie Zhar-ptitsie i o Sierom Volkie (The Story of Prince Ivan and the Grey Wolf), published in St. Petersburg in 1901 and believed to be one of the original volumes in a series of Russian folk tales commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II for the children of the Imperial household. Also in the collection are several important series and special groupings including a nearly complete collection of the “Rollo Books” by Jacob Abbott (1803-1879) and Horatio Alger’s series for boys, “Ragged Dick,” “Luck and Pluck,” and “Tattered Tom.”
Instructional Technology Resources
SILS provides superior student computing facilities. A computer lab, located in the school’s Information Technology and Resource Center in Manning Hall, is equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and software. The lab, dedicated to SILS students’ work, is divided into two adjacent areas—a computer classroom and an open use area. The computer classroom supports hands-on instruction for the many SILS classes that meet there on a regular basis, giving students and faculty an opportunity to engage in participatory, rather than passive learning. The open use lab is available to SILS students and staff any time that the school’s Information and Technology Resource Center is open (typical hours are from 8 am–10 pm weekdays, 11 am–5 pm Saturdays, and 12 noon–10 pm Sundays). Numerous software titles are made available to SILS students and faculty through programs provided by SILS IT and UNC campus licenses.