About the Libraries

The UMass Amherst Libraries is the largest state-supported academic library system in New England. With more than 8 million distinct items that span print and digital media, much of it is available online to the campus community and the wider world around the clock, from virtually anywhere.

The Libraries include the Science and Engineering Library (SEL) in Lederle Lowrise and the W. E. B. Du Bois Library and Learning Commons, located at the heart of the UMass Amherst campus, and the Wadsworth Library at Mount Ida Campus in Newton, MA. The Du Bois Library is the tallest university library in the world.

The Libraries’ Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center is home to distinguished manuscript collections documenting the history of social change in America, including the papers of W. E. B. Du Bois, Horace Mann Bond, Daniel Ellsberg, Kenneth R. Feinberg, and many others. 

The W. E. B. Du Bois Center is a source of academic scholarship and intellectual pursuit within the UMass Amherst Libraries. The Center affects positive change and explores issues of justice by providing access to unparalleled archival resources and supporting scholars from all over campus, across disciplines, and from around the world as they interact with the teachings of W. E. B. Du Bois.