Jarrett Library Facts and Figures

The Present, Past & Future of the Library at ETBU

The library is named after Mamye Jarrett, a longtime resident of Garrison, Texas, who gave generously toward the construction of the current building.  Jarrett Library was opened in 1979. 

The library has three main public sections - The Heritage Room which houses the circulating collection A - E340, study areas, and computers.  Just off the Heritage Room is the vault which holds the library archives and special collections.  An office houses one of the librarians. 

A second section is the Heritage Court, which is the soft-seating area located in the central section of the library near the picture windows.  This area also houses three study tables, and several computers, as well as display areas.  A prominent fixture is the silver-toned statue entitled "Searching".  This statue once stood in the courtyard & garden of the Southwest Life Building in Dallas.  Around 2003 it was bought by an ETBU benefactor who generously donated it to the school and it has been housed in the library ever since.

The third section is the main part of the library and houses the rest of the circulating collection, the reference collection, periodicals, and the children's and young adult literature collections.  Recently we began the process of renovating the library and the first step was the remove the area known as the control room as well as an office.  Although eventually this space will be filled up with stacks it currently houses a large number of new sofas, loveseats, chaise lounges, and comfortable chairs for relaxation and study.  Cafe style tables and chair have been added and will sit under the windows to give additional windows to gaze out of when you are not studying.

Future renovation plans include include new carpeting over the entire library as well as new wall treatments - plans are to move forward with this in the summer of 2009.  In addition to the renovation the library will be reorganized by moving the entire circulating collection into the main area as well as all audiovisual materials owned by the library.  (Recordings  and videos housed in Bennett Music Lab will remain in that location.)   The collections will be arranged into learning communities and will bring together circulating and reference books, periodicals, and audiovisual materials into those areas.  Each area will be color-coded (note the colored label protectors already added to many books) to more easily locate your section.  The 12 sections will be (1) Generalities/Library Science (white); (2) Religion/Philosophy (red); (3) Behavioral Sciences (purple); (4) History & Political Science & related fields (blue); (5) Business (orange); (6) Education (light blue); (7) Fine & Performing Arts (Music, Theatre, Art) (pink); (8) Communications (yellow); (9) Languages & Literature (gray); (10) Kinesiology & related fields (light green); (11) Chemistry & Math (and other "hard sciences) (light purple); and (12) Life & Medical Sciences (Biology, Agriculture, Medicine, Nursing).  Many of these fields will overlap with others - such as Kinesiology & the Life/Medical Sciences so the arrangement will be one that should make it easy to do multidisciplinary work as well as more specialized work in the field of your choice.

The reorganization will allow the Heritage Room to be opened up for group study as well as space for library instruction.  Mobile furnishings will be bought, along with movable panels and white boards which will allow groups to arrange their own areas according to number in the work group.  The room may also occasionally be used for library meetings, such as the annual meeting of the Mary K. Armstrong Society; or if the library is hosting a meeting, such as the annual meeting of the librarians of the Texas Baptist universities and schools which rotates among the various Baptists schools.

Before Jarrett Library was built the campus library was housed in the back section of H.D. Bruce.  You can still see traces of the library from the outside as you look at the vaulted windows which allowed light into the main reading room.  The small narrow staircases inside the building are the remains of the stacks area which was three levels of bookshelves and housed the circulating collection.  Prior to this building the library was housed in one end of Marshall Hall on the second floor.

Collections (as of 11 August 2008)

Numbers are volumes/items and are based on the current item counts in the library's cataloging system.  Because of the large number of electronic resources available not every item is in the online catalog - thus the number of electronic & digital resources is actually larger than shown.  These numbers also include the holdings in Bennett Music Lab.

¹Includes juvenile literature collection and non-circulating book collections.
²Journals, newspapers, and other publications that come out on a periodic schedule.
³AV includes CD, LP and cassettes.  Electronic is accessed from three different aggregate databases as well as some freely available audio from the Internet.
⁴Includes DVD, VHS, & Videodisc under the AV column.  Electronic includes streaming video available through aggregate databases and single title leasing.
⁵Includes images found in ARTstor as well as image files & collections contained in several of the aggregate databases.

In addition to the above volume and item counts the library has access to over 21,000 serial titles in print, microform, and electronic formats.  There is some overlap of formats, but the vast majority of these titles are digital.

Library Usage

Statistics on library usage are carefully taken during the year.  Usage includes circulation (checking out / renewing books) and in-house usage for print, audiovisual and microform collections.  In-house usage are those materials used within the library such as reference or bound periodicals.  We get this information from books left on tables or put in designated spots for reshelving.  As a result, these are not always accurate statistics, and usage is much higher since many people reshelve the materials they use.  That is the main reason we ask you not to reshelve your own books - we enter the information into our library system before we reshelve which helps us generate our end-of-year statistics which benefits all the users.  Statistics for electronic resource usage come from our vendors on a monthly basis and are considered in-house usage.