W. E. B. Du Bois Library

W. E. B. Du Bois Library
Du Bois Library in 2011
General information
Type	Research
Location	Amherst, Massachusetts 01003 United States
Construction started	1972
Completed	1974
Height
Roof	286.5 feet (87.3 m)
Top floor	26
Technical details
Floor count	28
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Edward Durrell Stone
Main contractor	Daniel O'Connell's Sons, of Holyoke[1]
W. E. B. Du Bois Library at night
42°23′23.42″N 72°31′41.65″W / 42.3898389°N 72.5282361°W / 42.3898389; -72.5282361
Location	154 Hicks Way University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst, MA 01003-9275, United States
Type	Public
Established	1974
Collection
Size	4 million
Other information
Website	library.umass.edu
References
[2]

The W. E. B. Du Bois Library is one of the three libraries of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, the others being the Science and Engineering Library and the Wadsworth Library at the Mount Ida Campus. The W. E. B. Du Bois Library holds resources primarily in humanities and social and behavioral sciences. At 28 stories and 286 feet 4+1⁄8 inches (roughly 88 m) tall, it is the third-tallest library in the world after the National Library of Indonesia in Jakarta at 414 feet (126 m) and Shanghai Library in China at 348 feet (106 m). Measuring taller purely by height, the libraries in Jakarta and Shanghai both only have 24 floors. The W. E. B. Du Bois Library is also considered to be the tallest academic research library^[3] (despite claims by UMass that it is the largest^[4]) and 32nd tallest educational building in the world. The building maintains a security force, which is managed by various supervisors and student employees.

Present holdings at the UMass Libraries include over 4 million titles and over nine million individual items, providing access to over 200,000 online journals, over 1,700,000 e-books, and more than 500 databases.

As part of the Five College Consortium, the UMass Amherst Libraries also have access to material from its partners in the Consortium: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College. Students can also take advantage of the Interlibrary Loan Services to obtain materials from libraries beyond the Five College system and from all over the world.