STUDENT LIFE & SERVICES

Information Services

Wollman Library

The Barnard Library occupies the first three floors of Adele Lehman Hall; the Archives is located on the tunnel level. The Library's collection includes both print and nonprint resources that are intended to serve the curricular needs of the undergraduate students at Barnard. The Library's Media Services department includes a growing collection of video and audio material in all formats and provides equipment for its use. The Library also provides access to a wide variety of indexes and texts in electronic format. The Library has an especially strong collection in women’s studies, including an expanding collection of self-published Zines, that is supplemented by research materials in the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Special collections in the Library include the Barnard Archives, a collection of official and student publications, letters, photographs and other material that documents Barnard's history from its founding in 1889 to the present; the personal library of Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral; the Overbury Collection of 3,300 books and manuscripts by and about American women authors, and a number of rare books.

During the academic year the Library is open seven days a week providing a full range of services. The Reference Department offers an on-going instructional program, including in-class lectures and individual consultations, designed to help each student develop her library and research skills.

In addition to standard print research materials, the Library provides access to many electronic information sources. CLIO is a computerized catalog containing holdings of the entire Columbia University Library system, including Barnard. Students can also search a wide variety of periodical indexes online, an increasing number of full-text news and research databases, and all of the resources of the World Wide Web.

Barnard students have access to all Columbia University libraries, with more than 9 million volumes, as well as to the libraries of Teachers College, Jewish Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary. In addition, students may use the many libraries and collections in the metropolitan area, either through public access or special referral.

Academic Technologies — Student Computing

Academic Technologies provides computing resources and services to all Barnard students through the Residential Computing program and in five student computer centers on campus. Residential Computing assists students with computer installations, network connections and basic software applications. Laptop support is provided in the computer labs during scheduled hours. The main computer lab, located in 112 Lehman Hall, houses PCs, Macintoshes, printers and scanners. Full-time staff and student technicians are available in this lab to help with questions, problems and general computing support. Students may also contact the Help Desk by phone, email or in person for computing assistance. Four smaller labs, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during the academic year, are located in the Sulzberger, Plimpton, and 616 W. 116th Street residence halls. All computers in the labs provide access to AT-supported software applications and to the internet.

Management Information and Network Services (MINS)

The Department of Management Information & Network Services (MINS) is responsible for managing all aspects of College-wide computer network and software system platforms. These systems encompass e-mail, the World Wide Web and other internet services, database applications, administrative systems, and network infrastructure. The MINS department maintains and ensures the constant availability of Internet access, wireless and network connectivity and computing services for Barnard College students, faculty, and staff. MINS also works in conjunction with other college departments to implement administrative applications such as online student services and course registration, and online systems for faculty, accounting, finance and human resources.

Barnard Center for Research on Women

The Barnard Center for Research on Women promotes a dialogue between feminist scholarship and activism, and serves a community composed of faculty, students, staff, alumnae, community activists, artists, and scholars. Founded in 1971 to deepen Barnard’s longtime commitment to women’s equality, the Center has, in recent years, dedicated itself to examining how today’s women’s movements speak to and further those of the past, as well as the ways in which feminist struggles are inextricably linked to other movements for racial, economic, and social justice around the globe.

The Center accomplishes these goals by offering public lectures and conferences on a wide range of feminist issues and by publishing its tri-annual web journal, “The Scholar and Feminist Online.” These efforts fortify the Center’s role of fostering inquiry and advancing knowledge about women and keeping feminist issues at the forefront of college life. They also link Barnard to a diverse range of activist organizations and community groups throughout the city, a listing of which is available in the online BCRW Directory of Women’s and Social Justice Organizations.

Nowhere is this network more visible than in the Center’s lively, provocative and engaging programming. Hosting nearly a dozen ongoing series, the Center provides a public forum for intelligent and relevant discussions of women in Judaism, the future of feminism, the politics of women’s imprisonment, and feminist responses to today’s most controversial issues. Bringing together renowned scholars, artists, and community organizers, the nationally recognized annual “The Scholar and the Feminist” conference, now in its 33rd year, has, in recent years, explored the changing face of activism across generations, international feminist movements, and feminist responses to race and poverty.

Located in Room 101 Barnard Hall, the Center’s reading room and Resource Collection, which includes over 120 feminist periodicals, are open to members of the Barnard community and the general public. The Center also houses hundreds of rare, difficult-to-find feminist materials dating back to the early Second Wave of American Women’s Movements. This public archive of fliers, reports, newsletters, pamphlets, and conference programs provides an exciting glimpse into one of the most vibrant moments in the history of activism. In From the Collection, each semester student research assistants curate an online exhibition of the most interesting documents, organizing them around a theme of enduring importance.