Library History & Facts

The library at Illinois State Normal University opened in 1890, thirty-three years after the opening if the university. Until that time departments held their own collections. The library has resided in five buildings, and moved into the current facility in 1976. The present building is named in honor of Angeline Vernon Milner, who was the first university librarian from 1890-1928.

Library Staffing:

• 32 tenured, tenure track and non-tenure track library faculty
• 7 administrative professionals (3 with rank & tenure)
• 54 civil service staff

Library Resources

Milner Library is an active partner in the teaching, learning, research, and service activities of Illinois State University.  Milner librarians provide research assistance and library instruction customized to meet the needs of students and faculty.  Reference collections include general, as well as subject-specific, print and electronic research tools including indexes, handbooks, dictionaries, bibliographies, directories and bibliographic and full text databases. 

Milner’s collections Include:

• 1,610,271 print volumes (located in open and closed stacks as well as a remote storage unit)
• 38,395 electronic journal titles
• 48,527 multimedia titles
• 2,541 print journal titles

Computer Workstations:

• 84 public workstations
• 62 classroom workstations
• 110 computer lab workstations
• 38 laptops

Instruction Sessions:

• 345 sessions reaching 9,045 learners Spring 2009
• 466 sessions reaching 9,681 learners Fall 2008
• 309 sessions reaching 6,164 learners Spring 2008

Recent Activity:

•  30,263 reference questions answered in 2008
•  24,249 reference questions answered so far in 2009
• 78,245,944 visits to the library’s web page in 2008
• 109 hours of operation per week
• 496,841 in-person visits in 2008

Milner’s Web site serves as an electronic guide to library resources, services, facilities, and staff. In addition, Milner’s “Ask a Librarian” service provides online reference assistance through Instant Messaging and email.

Location & Spaces

Milner Library is located on the northeast corner of the quad, next to the Bone Student Center.  Each of its five public floors provides a variety of study areas - learning spaces, individual carrels, small tables, group study spaces, and lounge chairs -- all located adjacent to books, periodicals, and other library materials.  The library includes areas devoted to specific disciplines.  The sixth floor is devoted to the humanities, media, education and teaching materials.  Floor 5 covers the pure and applied sciences.
The third and fourth floors contain social sciences materials.  The main floor offers general resources along with reference and check-out services.

Additional Features

The University Archives is part of the library organization.  It is the official repository of University records.  Part of its collection can be viewed in the ISU History digital collection.

Milner hosts the Teaching with Primary Sources (Midwest Region) program, the only academic library to be affiliated with the Library of Congress program.

Milner also hosts regular speaker series and welcomes traveling exhibits on a variety of topics. Recent exhibits include John Adams Unbound and Picturing Hemingway: a writer in his time.

The Friends of Milner Library group hosts books sales and sponsors programs in the library. The Friends were also instrumental in funding digital signage throughout the library.

Milner Library is a governing member in the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) and has been a member since 1980.

"Faculty Research at Illinois State University:  A Bibliography of Historical and Current Scholarly Works" is a database of publications by ISU faculty from 1857 to the present, compiled by a research group of Milner Library faculty.