Year of the Library

Bridwell Library offers a rich array of materials and services in support of the study and research needs of the students and faculty of Perkins School of Theology and the Graduate Program in Religious Studies. Bridwell is also the principal bibliographic resource at Southern Methodist University for the fields of theology and religious studies. The library welcomes researchers from the University as well as the extended religious and academic communities.

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The Jake and Nancy Hamon Arts Library houses the Central University Libraries’ collection of more than 180,000 books and other materials relevant to the visual and performing arts and communication studies. In addition, the Library has some 300 subscriptions to arts periodicals and provides access to more than 40 online resources that are specific to the arts. Unique materials include the holdings of the Jerry Bywaters Special Collections Wing, which houses papers of noted artist, museum administrator and SMU professor Jerry Bywaters ’27, as well as artists Otis Dozier, E.G. Eisenlohr, Ann Cushing Gantz, William Lester, Henry Potter, Octavio Medellin and Everett Spruce, actress Greer Garson Fogelson and longtime SMU Dean of Music Paul van Katwijk. The Mary McCord/Edyth Renshaw Collection on the Performing Arts is named for two SMU professors of speech who founded the collection. The G. William Jones Film and Video Collection is also part of the Library, with more than 9,000 films and more than 3,000 videotapes. Unique resources include the Tyler, Texas, Black Film Collection.

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Fondren Library was SMU’s first stand-alone library building. Today Fondren Library is home to government documents, general collections, Center for Teaching Excellence, Southwest Review, DeGolyer Library and Special Collections as well as Archives of Women of the Southwest. The grand reading room today houses part of the DeGolyer’s Library’s book collection.  

DeGolyer is home to SMU’s special collections, a diverse catalog of primary sources for scholars and students. The library’s collection of Western Americana is particularly strong, and featured collections include SMU Archives and significant historical materials such as the papers of JCPenney, Texas Instruments, Belo Corp. and playwright Horton Foote. The DeGolyer offers fellowships; sponsors lectures, conferences, and social events; hosts graduate and undergraduate classes; regularly mounts exhibitions for the public; and publishes catalogues, checklists, finding aids, and other works that interpret its holdings and make them more readily

The Business Library provides the SMU community with authoritative business information in a variety of formats. It supports the integration of information and technology into the curriculum and acts as a center for research and development for state-of-the-art information technology applications in the business education field. In support of this mission, students, faculty and staff have access to course-specific in-class instruction sessions, open enrollment research workshops and reference assistance from dedicated business librarians to enhance their use of current business news and financial, industry and market data from premier providers.

The library offers the SMU community both quiet and group study areas; individual and group computer areas consisting of 70 computer workstations; a multimedia studio; a group presentation practice room; a periodicals area; facility-wide wireless access; with 480 electronic research databases; and a variety of print resources, including the Edwin L. Cox Business Leadership Center Resource Collection, the Cary M. Maguire Energy Institute Resource Collection and the Career Management Center Library.

The Underwood Library of the Dedman School of Law is the largest private legal library in the Southwest, encompassing 645,000 volumes. Among the Library’s broad collection are special resources in the areas of international law, commercial law, oil and gas, securities, taxation, air and space law and jurisprudence. The Library features several special collections, one of which is The Professor Joseph W. McKnight Historical Collection, consisting of more than 8,000 volumes of antiquarian and historical legal materials collected by McKnight, a faculty member of the Dedman School of Law. Most materials are from the 18th century or earlier.