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New Faculty Orientation 2025

Collections and Spaces

Collections & Spaces

The Library has numerous collections and spaces for many kinds of activities:

  • Study rooms, including one set up for parents with kids
  • Library classrooms for hands-on library instruction, with up to 25 computers and up to 40 seats
  • The Buley Makerspace - crafting, 3D printing, and more
  • Special Collections & Archives - archival materials related to New Haven history, rare books, and more
  • Leisure Reading Collection - kick back with a novel! (And try the Nap Pod!)
  • Computer workstations for students, faculty, & staff (and wifi throughout the building)
  • And much more!

Collections and Locations

Buley Library uses the Library of Congress Classification System to catalog and arrange most books and other items in the Library. Call numbers are assigned by the major subject of the work, so books on similar topics are on the same or nearby shelves.

When you search the catalog for books, you'll see 3 boxes on the item record: Location, Call No., and Status.

Here's how to interpret what you see:

  • Main Circulating Stacks are on the 2nd and 3rd floors of Buley:
    • Call numbers beginning with A-PL are on the 2nd floor.
    • Call numbers beginning with PM-Z are on the 3rd floor.
       
  • Bound Journals and Indexes are on the ground floor.
     
  • Connecticut Collection books are on the ground floor in Special Collections.
     
  • Current Issues (Journals, Magazines, & Newspapers) are on the ground floor.

  • Curriculum Collection materials are on the ground floor.
     
  • Display Case materials are accessed by asking at the Reference or Circulation desks on the main 1st floor.
     
  • Juvenile Fiction & Non-fiction, including Oversize, books are on the ground floor.
     
  • Kits, games, realia are on the ground floor.
     
  • Leisure Reading books are on the 1st floor next to the circulation desk.
     
  • Makerspace items are on the ground floor.
     
  • Masters Thesis print copies - The recent years are located on the 3rd floor of the library. Earlier years are currently unavailable in hardcopy but may be available online. Please see a Reference Librarian.
     
  • Media Collection materials are on the main 1st floor.
     
  • Microform Collections are on the ground floor.
     
  • New Books  are on the main 1st floor.
     
  • Oversize stacks books are on the 3rd floor.
     
  • Reference books are on the main 1st floor.
     
  • Special Collection, Fac (Faculty) Collection, Rare Books, Special Collection Text Book, X Collection, Technical Services are closed collections. Please ask at the Reference Desk to request materials from these collections.
     
  • Textbooks are on the main 1st floor.

Digital Primary Sources

Buley Library participates in the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA), a statewide initiative to make digitized primary sources available not only to the SCSU community and Connecticut residents, but to the whole world. Currently, our largest collection, digitized and uploaded by Buley’s Technical Services Department, is the Mayor John DiStefano Jr. papers, which represent an official record of Mr. DiStefano’s time as mayor of New Haven. We invite you to regularly check into out growing collection of freely available digital sources on CTDA.