The University of Adelaide is the oldest of the three universities in the State of South Australia, having been established in 1874. The University, located in the central metropolitan area of Adelaide, has a student enrolment of approximately 14,000, and covers a broad range of academic and professional disciplines. The University has a strong research emphasis with a relatively high proportion of postgraduate students. The University and its libraries have successful co-operative relationships with a large number of local institutions, including the Flinders University of South Australia, the University of South Australia, and other professional, research, governmental and commercial organisations.
The University of Adelaide Library comprises:
The Waite Library and the Roseworthy Library both serve the staff and students of the Division of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and several primary industry departments of the South Australian Government.
The Barr Smith Library is the central library of the University and accommodates materials and services which support all faculties and departments not specifically served by the branch libraries. It undertakes a number of tasks on behalf of the branch libraries, including the acquisition, cataloguing, and classification of new additions to the collections, the purchase of equipment and supplies, the collection and recording of management information, and the management and development of computing systems.
By the end of 1998, library holdings will exceed 2,000,000 items. The libraries currently receive approximately 11,000 journal titles, and some 20,000 new monograph volumes are catalogued each year, and a similar number of bound volumes of journals is accessioned annually. Particular collection strengths include medicine and dentistry, the biological sciences, agriculture, music, nineteenth century English literature, and Australian history. The University of Adelaide Libraries accommodate some 350,000 volumes in the Joint Library Store, shared with the Flinders University Library on campus of Flinders, sixteen kilometres to the south of the University of Adelaide; an extension to the Store was completed in 1997, and will accommodate a further 300,000 volumes on behalf of the University of Adelaide Library. A daily courier service delivers volumes and requested photocopied articles between all libraries of the University and the Joint Library Store.
The Barr Smith Library has study accommodation for approximately 1,300 persons, and an additional 700 study places exist in the branch libraries. There are approximately 500,000 loans annually. The Library lends some 20,000 items to other Australian libraries each year; and borrows some 6,200 items for its own members from other libraries. Membership of the Library is open to the staff and students of the University of Adelaide, to the staff and students of Flinders University and the University of South Australia, and to other persons for whom a case is made: the Library will generally admit members of the public to consult items in its collections.
Administratively the Barr Smith Library is structured into functional areas:
Library routines are extensively automated, and the Library is a pioneer in a number of aspects of the application of computing in information retrieval. Main library systems run on a DEC Alpha 1000A 5/300 computer; a Library Information Service provides users with access to information resources around the world, a large suite of Database facilities is provided for users with access over the University computing network, a microcomputer suite exists for student use, and microcomputing is employed in many aspects of library management.
In 1997 the Library's budget was $11,558,000, of which 40% was spent on new additions to the collections, 49% on staff salaries, and the balance on equipment and other support costs.
The Barr Smith Library owes its name to the Barr Smith family, which was prominent in South Australian business and pastoralist activity over many years, and which made many gifts and bequests to the University of Adelaide. The original building of the Barr Smith Library, now a reading room with heritage status, was opened in 1932, having been built with £30,000 donated by Tom Elder Barr Smith. Later additions to the Library were made in all decades from the 1950s, the large southern wing completed in the early 1970s, and the present entrance in 1984. The usable floor area of the Barr Smith Library is 14,600 square metres, and of all the libraries 20,809 square metres.
| BSL | Law | PAL | Roseworthy | Waite | All | |
| Library collections | ||||||
| Monograph volumes | 808,726 | 36,713 | 20,951 | 36,438 | 30,288 | 933,116 |
| Journal volumes | 502,793 | 75,064 | 6,047 | 9,028 | 577,731 | 647,630 |
| Microform volumes | 245,241 | 4,596 | - | 47 | 239 | 250,123 |
| Maps | 128 | - | - | 945 | - | 1,073 |
| Music scores | - | - | 107,957 | - | - | 107,957 |
| Sound recordings | 657 | 8 | 21,436 | 135 | 17 | 22,253 |
| Visual recordings | 570 | - | 336 | 360 | 161 | 1,427 |
| Graphic materials | 8,067 | - | - | 5 | 7 | 8,079 |
| Computer filess | 2,495 | - | - | 70 | 6 | 2,571 |
| Multimedia/kits | 391 | - | - | - | - | 391 |
| Other non-book items | 50 | - | - | - | - | 50 |
| Total of all items | 1,569,118 | 116,381 | 156,727 | 47,028 | 608,449 | 1,974,670 |
| Current journal titles | 8,650 | 1,220 | 232 | 824 | 940 | 11,866 |
| User seats | 1,406 | 212 | 96 | 204 | 147 | 2,065 |