Libraries
Geneva residents enjoy excellent public library facilities.
The Geneva Public Library
is located at the corner of Castle and Main Streets in downtown Geneva.
In 1995, the library completed a major renovation and construction project,
tripling the size of the facility. The spacious library building is
handicapped accessible, and its Community Room is available for meetings and
special events.
The library is actively used. Approximately 10,000 registered cardholders
borrow over 12,000 items per month. The collection includes books,
audiocassettes, videos, magazines, newspapers, and electronic resources.
Weekly children’s programs are held for families and day care centers.
Assistance with information and research questions is provided. A job
information center with a computer workstation enables job hunters to
prepare resumes and search job databases. Tutoring rooms are available for
adult learners, and a computer workstation is available for literacy
tutoring. A special collection of Spanish language materials is available
for Spanish-speaking individuals. The library works cooperatively with
organizations such as the Geneva School District, Head Start, Geneva
Courtyard Apartments, and the New York State Department of Labor to reach
out to low- and moderate-income individuals who benefit from library
services.
The library also serves as Central Library for the
Pioneer Library System, providing
services to other libraries in a four-county area. (789-5303).
The Warren Hunting
Smith Library, located on the campus of Hobart & William Smith Colleges,
houses more than 380,000 volumes, more than 1,300 periodical titles, 36
newspapers, and a microform collection of 42,000 items. The MULTILIS
integrated system provides access to the collection from anywhere on the
campus computer network. Networked CD-ROM subject indexes allow multiple
simultaneous database use in the library or elsewhere on campus. Menus on
the library terminals point to a variety of Internet gopher and Websites, as
well as providing direct telnet and ftp connections.
Through membership in the Rochester Regional Library Council, the Smith
Library provides students with interlibrary loan access to holdings in local
library collections in excess of five million volumes. The OCLC network, a
national bibliographic utility, offers students interlibrary loans of
another 33 million volumes in more than 10,000 libraries. Online searches of
commercial vendors' databases are provided free of charge by professional
library staff. The library maintains accounts with major vendors of academic
search services, including DIALOG, WILSONLINE, and BRS, as well as OCLC/EPIC
and RLIN. Accounts provide access to hundreds of statistical, bibliographic,
and full-text files. A vigorous program of course-related research
instruction is provided in first-year through upper-level courses and for
the Honors program.
Borrowing privileges at Smith Library are available to all Geneva residents
with a Geneva address. Local high school students can borrow with a parent’s
signature. Library associate memberships are also available for
non-residents at a cost of $25 per year.