USU Libraries Profile

Mission Statement

Strategic Areas and Initiatives

Collections and Services

Collections

The USU Libraries provide collections in support of the teaching and research mission of Utah State University, serving students and faculty at the Logan, USU Eastern and Blanding campuses, as well as researchers and online learners wherever they are located. Library collections include almost 2 million print books and journals, 7,600,000 e-books (including over 7 million in the HathiTrust Digital Library), and over 70,000 electronic journals. In addition, the Libraries provide access to over 400 databases, ranging from general and multidisciplinary titles such as Academic Search Ultimate, Nexus Uni, and Scopus, to more specialized tools such as MEDLINE, Early English Books Online, Education Source, PsycINFO, SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts), and Social Sciences Abstracts. Students, faculty, and staff can access the vast majority of the Libraries’ databases and electronic resources off-campus, no matter where they live, study, or work.

The main library for the Logan campus, the Merrill-Cazier Library, also serves as a regional depository for the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and maintains a collection of approximately 1.4 million government documents. Many other specialized formats and collections are housed in the Merrill-Cazier Library. The USU Special Collections and Archives contains regionally-focused rare book, photograph, and manuscript collections, the university archive of USU, and the Fife Folklore Archives, one of the largest repositories of American folklore in the United States. Thousands of these historical items have been digitized as a part of the library’s Digital History Collections. 

The Library Media Collection houses audio and visual material available to be checked out by anyone with USU affiliation. Increasingly, the Library is also acquiring streaming media, including large holdings of streaming music and films. The Art Book Collection has particularly strong holdings in twentieth century modern and contemporary American art of the U.S. West and materials by and about the Beat generation of poets.

Digital Commons, Utah State University's institutional repository, contains over 90,000 scholarly and creative works produced by USU students, faculty and staff. Since launching in 2008, items have been downloaded over 25 million times from Digital Commons.

For more information about USU Libraries’ collections, read our collection development guidelines.

Services

The USU Libraries offers a full range of academic library services to USU’s Logan and regional campuses and centers. Research assistance is offered face-to-face as well as via chat, email, and phone. Library instruction is provided in the Libraries' technology-enhanced classrooms, via face-to-face and broadcast classroom visits, and through library research guides and online tutorials within the university's Learning Management System. Librarians serve as subject liaisons to academic departments throughout the colleges, providing support for faculty and students through collection development, personalized research consultations, and library instruction.

Resource Sharing and Document Delivery Services extend the Libraries’ ability to support faculty and student research by obtaining materials not available in the local collection from other institutions across the world. Course Reserves provides course materials in print and in electronic format to ensure heavily used items are available in a timely and efficient manner. The Libraries’ Data Services team helps USU researchers with data management needs, including the creation of data management plans, meeting data management requirements of research funders, and identifying repositories for data preservation. The Library is also heavily involved with various open access initiatives, including support for open access publishing, open data initiatives, open educational resources (OER), and digital humanities.

Consortial Memberships

The USU Libraries are a member of the Utah Academic Library Consortium (UALC), a consortium of 14 academic libraries throughout Utah, and the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), a consortium of 38 research universities spread across the United States. The Libraries are also active in collaborative preservation efforts as members of the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST). Access to Special Collections and Archives material is supported through memberships in the Mountain West Digital Library, a discovery portal for digital collections, and Archives West, an online finding aid platform. Members of the Libraries’ staff serve on administrative boards and committees of these consortia.

Facilities and Technology

Library services at Utah State University are primarily provided by the Merrill-Cazier Library at the Logan campus and two satellite libraries at the Price and Blanding campuses of USU Eastern.

Merrill-Cazier Library

Opened in September 2005, Merrill-Cazier Library in Logan is a facility of 305,000 square feet and houses materials in the arts, humanities, social sciences, agriculture, life and physical sciences, medicine, and engineering. In addition to its large, browsable collection, the facility features a significant amount of space dedicated to study, collaboration, and 2017 informal learning, with an overall seating capacity of 3,843, including 39 group study rooms.

Several technological innovations make the library a highly functional building. An automated storage and retrieval system has capacity for over 1.5 million volumes, allowing for many years of collection growth. In keeping with the University’s land-grant mission, this system was named the BARN (Borrowers Automated Retrieval Network). Lesser-used books and all bound periodicals are stored and retrieved on demand from the BARN. Library users can use the online library catalog or discovery layer from their offices, homes, or any computer with internet access to request materials from the BARN, which are retrieved and made available at a library service desk within minutes.

The Merrill-Cazier Library also includes the Information Commons, which features over 120 workstations, two 3D printers, a virtual reality (VR) Lab, and a one button recording studio. Nine classrooms are also available to host regular USU classes and library instruction sessions. Librarians and computer support staff work in tandem to provide technological training and research assistance to users in the Information Commons.

USU Eastern

The Price Library and Learning Commons, built in 1968, is an 18,000 sq. ft. facility with an overall seating capacity of 295. Serving the USU Eastern campus located in Price, Utah, the library features 18 computers (PC and Macs), an instruction classroom, and several collaborative and student-support spaces, including a production center, a Reflection Room, and an Academic Tutoring Center. In addition to a circulating collection and various technology available for checkout, the library also houses special collections focused on local history, notably an archival collection devoted to Price native and former governor of Utah J. Bracken Lee.

USU Blanding

The USU Blanding campus library, built in 2006, is a 3,000 sq. ft. facility with 20 computers and a seating capacity of 95. The library serves students in southwestern Utah, including many Native American communities of the Four Corners region.

Other Library Collections

Additional library services are provided on the Logan campus at the Anne Carroll Moore Library of the Edith Bowen Laboratory School (children’s books), the Young Education Technology Center, the Intermountain Herbarium, and the Quinney Natural Resources Research Library in the Quinney College of Natural Resources.

Library Data

* Includes state documents.
** Excludes more than 3 million public domain electronic volumes in the HathiTrust Digital Library.

Staffing and Expenses

Reports and Assessment

Updated: April 2024