Computing at Barnard

History of Barnard College Library   This article includes notes on the growth of academic computing.

Before your time...

  • The opening of the Wollman Library at Lehman Hall in 1960 made space available not only for a growing book collection, but for the technology of the day. Up to fifty students could be accommodated in an audio-visual studio to listen to records and tapes or watch slides, films and television. Those who wished to listen to music, poetry or drama records individually with ear phones did so at custom built record player tables in an open area. A pay typewriter was available in a typing room. The language departments operated a popular language laboratory on the ground floor.
  • The Library did, in fact, acquire its first computers in 1982. Other milestones  include the publication of the Library's home page in 1994, and the presentation of a series of talks in the late 1990s entitled "The Scholar and the Web." From 1990-1994, the Library participated in American Memory, a seminal project utilizing digitized collections from the Library of Congress.
  • In 1984, CLIO, the computerized catalog of the holdings of the Columbia University Libraries, became operational. The following year, major electronic research resources were added to the system. Through Dialog Information Services, students now had access to more than 200 machine readable databases (printing terminals).
  • As early as 1990 Barnard Library began holding instructional sessions on the use of CLIO.
  • 1984 also was the year in which Barnard students were given access to personal computers, through a grant from the Pew Foundation and a donation of twenty-five computers from IBM, which allowed for the opening of an Academic Computer Center (developed by Robert Kahn). 


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