Private company

Cornell University Library

Library system of Cornell University

The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. As of 2014, it holds over eight million printed volumes and over a million ebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000 periodical titles are available online.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

1865Founded1

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Cornell Mann Library Exterior 1
Photo: Notyourbroom, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. As of 2014, it holds over eight million printed volumes and over a million ebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000 periodical titles are available online. It has 8.5 million microfilms and microfiches, more than 71,000 cubic feet (2,000 m3) of manuscripts, and close to 500,000 other materials, including motion pictures, DVDs, sound recordings, and computer files, extensive digital resources, and the University Archives. It is the 16th-largest library in North America, ranked by number of volumes held, and the 13th-largest research library in the U.S. by both titles and volumes held.2

Corporate structure

Cornell University Library is part of a group headed by Cornell University. 29 entities, 2 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

  • Cornell University Ithaca, New York, United States
    • Cornell University Library
      • Sidney Cox Library of Music and Dance Subsidiary · United States
    • Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future Subsidiary
    • Cornell Club of New York Subsidiary · New York City
    • Cornell University Press Subsidiary · Ithaca
    • Archaeological Exploration of Sardis Subsidiary · Turkey
    • Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, Cornell University Subsidiary · United States
    • Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research Subsidiary · United States
    • Cornell Lab of Ornithology Subsidiary · New York, United States
    • Cornell Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell Law School Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell Tech Subsidiary · United States
    • Cornell University Board of Trustees Subsidiary
    • Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell University College of Engineering Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell University College of Human Ecology Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell University School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions Subsidiary · United States
    • Cornell University School of Hotel Administration Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science Subsidiary · Ithaca, United States
    • L. H. Bailey Hortorium Herbarium Subsidiary · United States
    • Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies Subsidiary · United States
    • Weill Cornell Medicine Subsidiary · Manhattan, United States
    • and 4 more

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

The Cornell University Library system initially was a collection of 18,000 volumes stored in Morrill Hall. Daniel Willard Fiske, Cornell's first librarian, and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell University's first president, both willed their entire estates to Cornell University following their deaths. Under Fiske's direction, Cornell's library introduced a number of innovations, including allowing undergraduate students to browse through the books and check them out.

By 1885, the library had installed electric lights and stayed open 12 hours per day (instead of only a few hours per week—as most other libraries at American universities did at the time—just enough time for faculty to check out and return books), which allowed students to use it as a reference library.

From Wikipedia’s article on Cornell University Library, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Subsidiaries

  • Sidney Cox Library of Music and Dance

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1865Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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