The Indiana University Libraries comprise one of the leading academic research library systems in North America, providing strong collections, quality service and instructional programs, and noted leadership in the application of information technologies. After Indiana College was officially renamed to Indiana University in 1838, the student body began to grow in large numbers. In 1841, when the University was only about two decades old, chemistry professor and librarian Theophilus A. Wylie created the first catalog of all of the books Indiana University retained in its holdings. In 1888, the library employed eight staff members, and although it was growing exponentially each year, it contained less than 30,000 volumes. From the 1940s through the 1970s, the University continued to broaden its objectives and serve the cultural, professional, and practical needs of the state. As the years went on and the University grew, library employees and university administrators were coming to the realization that the current location of the library in Franklin Hall, on the flagship campus of the University (Bloomington), was no longer capable of housing the entire collection and therefore no longer capable of meeting the needs of the students and faculty. A new facility would be required in the near future to meet these needs, and the process of acquiring funding for the project began in the 1960's. The construction of the Main Library was completed in spring of 1969, and it was formally dedicated in October 1970. By the mid-1990s the Main Library, build to hold 2,600,000 volumes, had exceeded its capacity by more than a million volumes. To address this problem, the Trustees of IU approved the construction of an off-site shelving facility and state-of-the-art preservation lab that would conserve and protect the Libraries' collections for an estimated 400 years. Designed to hold 2.7 million volumes and to allow for same-day delivery service, the Ruth Lilly Auxiliary Library Facility (ALF) and E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory opened in 2002. Currently, the Bloomington campus is the home to 26 branch libraries and is ranked 27th among member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries. The IU Bloomington Libraries have holdings of over more than 7.8 million books in over 900 languages. Since the university's founding in the early 1800s, the Indiana University Libraries have grown from one room in the first College Building to a state-wide system with more than 10 million volumes.

Additional information may be available at: http://bl-libg-doghill.ads.iu.edu/gpd-web/iulibraryhistorysite/chron.php