Fresno State Library

Mission & History

Mission Statement

The Fresno State Library supports the University mission of education, research and service. To this end, the Library selects, develops, manages and provides access to information resources; promotes the critical use of information for learning and research; and presents cultural and scholarly programming that serves the campus, region and beyond.

Highlights from Library History

Learn about our history with a timeline of significant library events.

2010-Present

2022: The Library is renamed to “Fresno State Library.”
2010: The new Library is an immediate success with the campus and the community, with over 1,000,000 people visiting before its first birthday.
2010: War Veterans’ Oral History Project launches.
2010: The Learning Center is relocated in the Library.
2010: Media Lab opens offering multiple iMacs with specialized graphics design and music-editing software.
2011: Book Cart Drill Team participates in Homecoming.
2013: Map and Aerial Locator Tool (MALT) becomes publically available.
2014: Library offers QuestionPoint 24/7 chat reference service.
2014: DISCOVERe Hub, where students, faculty and staff can receive assistance or training with their mobile device or app, is added to the Library.
2015: Write-In programs begin to help students with researching and writing.
2015: Study Pods added to create more group study space.
2015: First Year Success Librarian joins the Library.
2015: Meditation and Prayer Room added to the Library.
2016: Today, 1.5 million people visit the Library annually. The Library has over 365,000 square feet of space for study, collections, computing and services. The Library houses the busiest Starbucks in Fresno.

2006-2009

2006-2008: Construction of the new Library building begins, with the Library operating out of the old South Wing.
2007: Michael Gorman retires and Peter McDonald is named Dean of Library Services.
2007: ALIS, the Library's online catalog system, is replaced with Millennium.
2007: The Reference Department begins accepting questions through instant messaging.
2008: Library Liaison program begins.
2008-2009: The South Wing is remodeled and Library services and staff is relocated in temporary locations across campus.
2009: The Reference Department begins accepting questions through text messaging.
2009: Construction is completed and the new Library opens on February 20.
2009: Equipment Lending program begins.

1998-2006

1998-1999: The First two electronic classrooms are opened.
1998: The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature is established.
2000: The Central Valley Political Archive is established.
2000: The Library begins offering laptops for student use, which continues to be one of the most popular student programs, with over 100,000 checkouts per year.
2001: The Library celebrates the acquisition of its one-millionth volume.
2002: Online tutorials and videos to teach students how to use the Library are introduced.
2004: Voters approve the Proposition 55 bond issue, which provides $95 million for a new library building. The firms of A.C. Martin Partners, Inc. and RMJM Hillier are hired as the architects and the planning process begins.
2005: All of the books are moved to a warehouse off campus.
2006: The original wings of the Library are demolished.

1980-1994

1980: The South Wing opens.
1980s: The Library's catalog records are converted into machine-readable form.
1981: The Library is re-named in Dr. Madden’s honor.
1982: The Library's first automated circulation system, CLSI, is installed.
1985: The Madden Library Associates support group (now the Friends of the Madden Library) is established.
1988: Michael Gorman joins the Madden Library as Dean of Library Services.
1988: The Reference Department adds CD-ROM indexes.
1990-1992: The Library suffers severe budget cuts. Twenty-five percent of its periodical subscriptions are cancelled. No video materials are purchased, and all other Library materials purchases are significantly decreased.
1991: The Library's Systems Office is created.
1992: The first automated catalogue, ALIS, is brought up (replacing the old card catalog). Since then, comprehensive periodical indexes and hundreds of bibliographic and full-text online databases have been made available on the Library's online system.
1994: The Music Library is re-named the Music & Media Library to better reflect its growing collection of videotapes and cassettes.
1994: The Development Office is created.

1949-1979

1949-1979: During Dr. Madden's tenure, the collection grows to 576,000 volumes.
1962: The Department of Music transfers its collection of phonodiscs to the Library.
1963: The Government Documents Department is established, and a year later is granted depository status for U.S. publications.
1966: The Department of Special Collections is established, initially containing the Roy J. Woodward Memorial Library of Californiana, the University's archives and a rare book collection.
1966-1975: The Library begins a 9-year reclassification project from the Dewey Decimal System to the Library of Congress classification system.
1968: The Music Library is created.
1970: The College Lab School is disbanded and its juvenile collection is transferred to the Library.
1975: The Library enters the world of electronic information when the Reference Department begins searching electronic databases for patrons.
1978: The curriculum collection is transferred from the School of Education. The juvenile and curriculum collections are housed together in the Teacher Resource Center.
1979: Dr. Madden retires.
1979-1988: Lillie Parker serves as University Librarian.

1911-1949

1911: Fresno State Normal School is founded and the Library is established.
1913: Maude Schaeffer (Department of English) is appointed acting Librarian.
1914: Agnes Tobin succeeds Ms. Schaeffer and remains until she retires in 1948.
1923: Two years after the institution becomes Fresno State Teachers College, Ms. Tobin obtains her first assistant.
1935: Fresno State Normal School is renamed Fresno State College.
1941: The Library staff grows to six.
1949: Henry Madden (for whom the present Library is named) arrives as University Librarian. The staff numbers eight. The collection contains approximately 70,000 volumes, with an emphasis on elementary and secondary education.