Stanford Libraries
Stanford’s 19 libraries support the university’s mission of teaching, learning and research by making information and knowledge accessible now and in the future. Fourteen libraries and several service units constitute the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR).
The libraries’ collections of books, journals, scores and printed reference works comprise more than 8.5 million physical volumes, as well as 1.5 million e-books, nearly 1.5 million audiovisual materials, more than 75,000 serials, thousands of other digital resources and nearly 6 million microform holdings.
In 2010-11, Stanford librarians taught more than 900 workshops and answered more than 150,000 reference questions.
Special Collections and University Archives include about 260,000 rare or special books and 59 million pages of unpublished materials, including the manuscripts, papers and correspondence of luminaries, scholars, technologists and writers; thousands of archival photographs; corporate records and archives, with emphasis on Silicon Valley and California history; and resources in Stanford history. These primary-source and historical resources are available by prior request for use in the Field Special Collections reading room in Green Library. Undergraduates are encouraged to conduct research among these collections. More than 135 classes are held annually in Special Collections.
SULAIR’s Academic Computing Services division helps students, faculty and staff use technology tools and resources for teaching, learning and research. Services include:
• technology-rich classrooms and study spaces, public computing and printing services
• IT/multimedia help and equipment in 80 residences and Meyer Library
• consulting for faculty on technology for teaching, research and digital humanities, including scholar-technicians in eight academic departments or programs
• CourseWork, Stanford’s enterprise learning management system, which supports about 1,200 courses per quarter
• The Digital Language Lab, which partners with the Stanford Language Center to support learning in 44 languages for more than 2,500 students per quarter
Stanford University Press
Founded in 1925, Stanford University Press publishes about 175 books per year. About two-thirds are scholarly monographs and textbooks in the humanities and the social sciences, notably history, literature, philosophy, religion, Asian studies, Middle East studies, politics, sociology, anthropology and education. The remaining third are textbooks, professional reference works and monographs in law, business, economics, security studies and public policy. Tenure monographs account for about 20 percent of the press’ scholarly output, and translations account for about 12 percent. Stanford University Press titles are available on a range of digital platforms, including the Kindle, Apple's iBooks, Nook and Kobo. Ebooks are also available directly from the Stanford University Press website. Readers may purchase and download PDF editions, rent ebooks and receive special bundle discounts.
HighWire Press
Established by SULAIR in 1995, Stanford’s ePublishing platform, HighWire Press, works with more than 140 independent publishers, societies, associations and university presses to produce and host online versions of more than 1,600 peer-reviewed journals, books, reference works, conference proceedings and other scholarly publications. HighWire content is used by students, researchers, clinicians and others daily: more than 600 billion requests and nearly 53 terabytes of data are transferred every month from the Stanford-based servers. The HighWire Portal's searching, browsing and other tools help readers discover information from nearly 7 million full-text articles, and allow them to access content on mobile devices, create customized alerts, follow toll-free links, search PubMed, connect to the Semantic Web and easily download citations.
Computing at Stanford
Stanford houses one of the most extensive computing environments of any university. Services include e-mail, web hosting, distributed file systems, wireless and remote Internet access, courseware and research and high-performance computing facilities.
SUNet, the Stanford University Network, includes more than 150,000 computers with assigned Internet protocol addresses. About 60,000 are active on any given day. More than 9.5 terabytes of data flow between SUNet and the Internet each day. Stanford has 40,000 e-mail accounts and delivers about two million incoming mail messages daily on systems supported by Information Technology Services.
Students are not required to own computers at Stanford, although an estimated 99 percent own at least one, with about 95 percent owning laptops. All residences on campus have a cluster of computers for use day or night.
Stanford has been a leader in computer use, research and instruction. A high-speed electronic calculator was installed on campus in 1953, and the university’s first computer was installed in 1956. The first faculty member specializing in computers joined the Mathematics Department in 1957, and the Computer Science Department was founded in 1965. In 1968, researchers debuted the computer mouse and hypertext linking. In 1984, trenches were dug for SUNet and, in 1988, Stanford’s network was one of the first to connect to the Internet. In 1987, Stanford established the first residential computing program in the country. In 1991, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center created the first U.S. website. In 2005, Stanford was the first university to launch a public site on ITunes U. In 2011, the university celebrated its 40 millionth download.
