Overview
Memorial is the principal research library on campus for the humanities and social sciences. Housing more than three million volumes on 75 miles of shelving, across 13 stack levels, it is the largest single collection in Wisconsin. Memorial is the largest library of UW–Madison, facilitating interdisciplinary scholarship in cooperation with more than 40 campus libraries. UW–Madison's library system is among the largest in the United States.
The collection includes books, journals, dissertations, newspapers, government documents, electronic resources, and other media selected to meet the needs of the UW-Madison teaching, learning, and research communities. The area studies collections, including materials in more than 350 languages, demonstrate Memorial's unique and rich collections. Not only do they support the many international research centers and programs on campus, they are also recognized nationally and worldwide. For example, the Library has some of the best collections in North America for German language, literature and history, Ibero-American studies, and South Asian languages and literature. Other exceptional collections include those related to the study of Shakespeare, Scandinavian studies, French literature, and Italian linguistics.
Users can search the collection via the online catalog, MadCat. Electronic resources, including journals and databases, can be accessed through the UW–Madison Libraries' Web site.