Introduction to the building

Welcome to Tisch Talks, Tisch Library’s ongoing audio magazine series. You’re listening to the first installment of the series, which introduces you to the building. Tisch is the Tufts library for arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences and engineering. The Music Library, a branch of Tisch is in the Aidekman Arts Center.

This 5 minute description introduces you to the layout of the building.

Starting at the ground floor and working our way up,

Level G houses some bound (also known as older) print periodicals. Specifically you’ll find call numbers PN-Z and also all the oversize bound periodicals. That means you’ll come down to Level G for all older issues of periodicals in subject areas such as American and British literature, computer science, biology, occupational therapy, math, physics, chemistry and engineering. Also on Level G is Digital Collections and Archives, which is the “steward of the University's permanently valuable records and collections created in any format, ensuring their permanent preservation and accessibility.” houses rare books, manuscripts, artifacts and university archives, the tail of Jumbo the elephant,  Finally, on Level G you can find study space, photocopiers, etc.

Moving up one floor to Level 1, you find bound periodicals in call numbers from BF through PM, the majority of the circulating book collection (call numbers A-Z, excepting oversize and fine art books), and the print government documents collection, where you can find publications from NASA, the Library of Congress, the National Portrait Gallery, as well as thousands of legislative and executive documents. The range of bound periodicals BF-PM means you will find subjects such as psychology, religion, philosophy, cultural and ethnic studies, history, social sciences, education, linguistics and some foreign language’s literature. When you’re looking around on Level 1, be aware that while periodicals and books share similar call numbers, they are shelved separately, with books being on shelves labeled at their end in white, and periodical shelves labeled in blue. Noteworthy book collections on Level 1 include Tufts dissertations and theses (dozens of shelves at LD5391.7 .A2), children’s literature (several shelves at PZ)
Level 1 offers photocopiers, lockers, quiet study rooms, and numerous study tables and carrels.

Level 2 is the action center of the library building. When you first walk in, you’ll notice the circulation desk on your left, a sculpture overhead, and the Hirsh reading room to your right. As you proceed forward, at the intersection, you’ll see the hallway leading to the very popular Tower Café on your right, and the stairs to Level 3 on your left. Moving ahead you’ll see the Reference Desk, the best place to start to ask any question you have about the library, whether it’s quick (our hours, where are the printers, etc.) or a question that might take some time (I’m doing a paper on environmental sustainability initiatives in rural China and I need to know where to start). Past the reference desk, you’ll start to see several book collections. Directly behind the desk is the print reference collection. All subjects are represented here. To the right of the reference collection is the oversize collection, which also includes fine art and photography books, a tradition that may just be unique to Tisch. The thinking is that because so many fine art books are of the coffee table size, that they should all be shelved in the oversize area. The oversize collection has an excellent selection of world and historical atlases. Last, but most assuredly not least on Level 2 is the microforms and current periodicals area, which houses numerous microform reader/printer/scanners, hundreds of current periodicals and newspapers (some from other countries) and the beginning of the bound periodical collection (representing call numbers from A through BF). As usual, there is quite a lot of study space, as well as several group study rooms on this level.

As you go upstairs from Level 2 to Level 3, it will be quickly obvious that Level 3 is the media collection. Several thousand DVDs, videos and some other film formats are shelved here, ranging from big budget first run hits to foreign art house films to documentaries.

We’ve come to the end of the tour of the building, but our tour of Tisch Library is not complete without hearing about the newly opened Ruth Lilly Music Library in the new Music Building. More to come.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of Tisch Talks. We invite your questions at any time. Don’t hesitate to be in touch!