The Library acquires and maintains a collection of materials necessary to support the research, patient care, education, and community service programs at UCSF. With over 820,000 volumes and more than 4,000 journals in print and digital formats, the Library's collection covers the spectrum of the health sciences disciplines.

[Collection and services statistics]

GALEN, the digital library of UCSF, provides the campus community with integrated access to health sciences information and Library services. The website provides access to more than 70 selected databases and over 6,000 online journals in a wide variety of subject areas. The GALEN acronym was first used by the Library in the early 1990s and stands for General Access Library Electronic Network.

The current version of GALEN was released in March 2003. The website was designed by Hot Studio in collaboration with Library staff and with input from the UCSF community. GALEN runs on Zope and the Apache web server.

The Center for Knowledge Management (CKM) is an innovative division of the Library that concentrates resources and expertise for the development of digital knowledge bases, electronic tools, and the sophisticated computing and communications infrastructure required for the Library. [more info]

The Interactive Learning Centers (ILCs) and the Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) provide instructional technology support for academic programs. The ILCs maintain computer labs and classrooms to provide general computing support for the UCSF curricula.

The CIT was established in 2001 to promote the effective use of multimedia and computer-based resources in the UCSF curricula. The CIT supports a web-based course management environment used by all UCSF schools for delivering curricular content. Through the CIT, academic units have access to staff and multimedia resources to support technology-based initiatives within the UCSF curricula.

Education and reference librarians provide consulting services and instruction to support education, research, and clinical care at UCSF. In addition to general classes, the Library collaborates with academic programs to deliver curriculum-integrated instruction to students. [class schedule]

Librarians are also available to locate print and online resources and to perform searches using a variety of databases. [search services]

Archives and Special Collections preserves and maintains unique materials to support research and teaching in the history of the health sciences. These materials include the UCSF Archives, the East Asian Collection, and contemporary collecting projects such as the AIDS History Project and the Biotechnology Archives. [more info]

Tobacco control, another strong special collections area, is represented on GALEN by the Tobacco Control Archives. The Library also maintains the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library and the British American Tobacco Documents Archive, separate web resources.

The Library is engaged with partners throughout the university, the campus, and the health sciences community to collect, preserve, and provide access to unique materials of scholarly interest. [more info]