College Library offers materials on a wide range of topics to support discovery and learning, especially for those new to academic research. Emphasis is placed on current materials that will support and enrich class assignments and projects.
For more details, please refer to College Library's complete Collection Development Policy.
A wealth of material appropriate for College Library users is available online. The electronic resources of the entire university library system are available at College Library and are a key component of the collections.
In addition to resources to meet the academic needs of users, College Library includes a recreational collection including: recreational/self-help nonfiction, popular fiction novels, audio books, CDs, movies, video games and popular magazines.
Books at College Library are spread throughout the collections. Use MadCat, the campus online catalog, to find the location and availability of books at College Library.
MadCat contains records for information resources all over campus. If you know you want to find a book at College Library, you can limit the results of your search to College Library by clicking the button "Set Limits" on the search page. When using MadCat to locate a book, you will need to make note of the book "Location" in addition to the book's call number.
If you cannot find the book you need in MadCat or cannot locate a book on the shelf, staff at any of the service desks will be happy to help you.
College Library collects video games for Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. There are over 150 games in our collection, including Dance Dance Revolution, Grand Theft Auto 4, Guitar Hero, Mario Kart Wii, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Games are available in the Open Book collection on the first floor and may be checked out for one week.
See a list of games recently added to this collection.
A list of all games in the collection is available in MadCat.
You can also find video games in MadCat by searching with "words anywhere" for:
- Electronic game? wii
- Electronic game? xbox 360
- Electronic game? playstation 3
College Library maintains a general selection of popular magazines in the second floor Periodicals Room, Room 2191. There are currently over fifty titles all available to browse, such as: Bicycling, Cosmopolitan, Curve, Good Housekeeping, Fortune, Mother Jones, Seed, and Spin. Popular magazines that complement College Library's special Ethnic Collection are available on the first floor, Room 1193.
The most current issue of each magazine cannot be checked out, but previous issues generally can be checked out for one week. Previous issues are maintained for two years. Use MadCat, the campus online catalog, to see if a particular magazine title is available at College Library.
College Library owns over a thousand musical CDs from a wide variety of genres. The collection includes work from AFI to the Wood Brothers, Beethoven to Beirut, and everything in between. CDs can be checked out by students for up to 28 days with 2 renewals.
The CDs are located in the Computer & Media Center which is on the second floor, Room 2250. Organized by artist, this collection is easy to browse and gets significant use.
You can use MadCat, the campus online catalog, to search for CDs by title or artist. You can limit your search to music CDs at College Library by clicking the button "Set Limits" on the search page. Limit type to "Musical Recording" and location to "College Library."
See a list of new music at College Library.
If you see a gap in the collection, please make a purchase suggestion.
College Library collects popular movies and some television shows in the Open Book collection. These DVDs are available to be checked out for three days. Click here to see items recently purchased for this collection
Other College Library collections include feature-films, the complete BBC series of Shakespeare's works, some complete television series, and a wide variety of documentaries. These items can be checked out for various loan periods, usually longer than videos in the Open Book collection. Most of these items are in DVD format, but some are VHS. DVD and VHS players are available to view videos at College Library.
To find lists of library videos in MadCat, you could search keyword or "words anywhere" for:
- feature film?
- videorecording?
- videorecording? and documentar?
- television program
- television program and season?
You can limit the results of your search to College Library by clicking the button "Set Limits" on the search or results page.
Also, a list is available of all popular DVDs in the Open Book Collection from this link to MadCat.
In addition to hundreds of current and historical newspapers available online through the UW-Madison Libraries E-Resource Gateway, College Library receives physical copies of several newspapers which are available to be read in the library. Current papers are made available daily and previous issues are kept for one week.
Newspapers currently available in the Open Book collection:
Newspapers currently available in the Ethnic Studies collection:Suggestions for Purchase
Know of something you'd like us to get? Just drop us a note in our suggestion box.
If you leave your email address, we can send you an update on your request.
Lists of the newest print and media items in each of College Library's collections are available online.