Library and Archive Services

Merrill Learning Center, Library Service Desk, Room 1000
Web: library.gallaudet.edu Email: library.help@gallaudet.edu; archives@gallaudet.edu

The Gallaudet University Library serves students, faculty, staff, and other researchers from around the world. The Library provides instructional, reference, and library collection services for the Gallaudet community, supporting uses of information resources and the development and enhancement of information literacy. The Library builds, maintains, and organizes the world's largest collection of deaf materials, as well as a collection of general materials, to support academic programs. Library hours are posted on the Library web site.

Community members can access the Library catalog from the Library web site. The Library web site also offers many online guides to help students and visitors start research in Deaf and other disciplines. Librarians are available to answer questions and help students with research in person, through video phone (866-957-4416) or voice (x5217), through email (library.help@gallaudet.edu), through text message (text bisonlib to 66746), and through real-time chat accessible on the Library web site. Computers are available in several locations for student use.

Through Gallaudet's participation in the Washington Research Library Consortium (www.wrlc.org), the Gallaudet community has full access to the Library collections at eight additional area universities, including the rights to borrow materials from those libraries. The shared catalog for the WRLC libraries includes more than 7 million volumes. New members of the Gallaudet community should stop by the Library to get a Library bar code added to their ID cards.

The University Library is part of the CIO Division, Gallaudet Technology and Library Services.  The Library has two units: Library Public Services (library.gallaudet.edu) and Library Deaf Collections and Archives (archives.gallaudet.edu). Together, the units provide services related to the deaf and general collections of books, manuscripts, journals, videos, and online resources, including full-text access to many journals and e-books. In addition to the many academic resources available, the Library also maintains a small collection of popular videos and books for students' pleasure viewing and reading.

The Deaf Library Study Center in MLC provides a space for scholars and students to view deaf-related videos and work individually and in small groups on research topics. Group study rooms, study tables, a quiet study room, and individual study carrels are also available in the Library building. Library maps are available online on the Library's web site.