Seymour Library

With its white limestone exterior and classic lead and stained-glass windows looking out on the green central campus, Seymour Library is a fixture of Knox College campus for students and visitors alike.

Inside, its mixture of classic architectural designs - including quarter-sawn oak paneling and wooden ceiling trusses over a centerpiece elevated reading room - and modern, renovated rooms and facilities, makes Seymour Library a fitting visual metaphor for the College's embrace of history, tradition and a modern outlook.

But you're going to like more about it than its looks. High-tech research resources, expert staff and user-friendly facilities combine to make Seymour Library among the best college libraries in the nation.
More on Seymour Library Services

An Environment for Learning
The Herman R. Muelder Reading Room is a stunning space that contains books on art while among the paintings above the shelves are depictions of past presidents and benefactors of the College. It is regularly used for tutoring sessions hosted by the Center for Teaching and Learning, and occasionally used for college events and public lectures.

The Eastman Exhibit area on the second floor is an inviting exhibition space used for displaying archival materials and texts of historical and cultural significance from the Library's collections, often on topics relevant to current events. A recent display, "Lincoln Recalled: American President, American Vision" featured books, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other documents from the Knox College Special Collections and Archives celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

On the second level, the Muelder, Finley, Standish and Bookfellow Rooms maintain the distinctive ambiance of the early 20th Century. The Knox College Alumni Association Reading Room, adjacent to the Special Collections & Archives, offers spacious study tables amidst historic artwork and artifacts from the collections in the Archives.

Study options in Seymour Library also include expansive carrels, along with historic and contemporary reading rooms, such as the Cecil Reading Room. The library also provides individual offices for students conducting extended research projects. As with all campus buildings, Seymour is equipped for fully wireless network and Internet access.

Special Collections
Housed in a climate-controlled section on the second floor of Seymour Library, Knox College's Special Collections and Archives enable Knox students, faculty and visiting scholars to engage in major research projects using primary source material from its deep and rich collections. Particular strengths of the collections are in American history and culture.

The library's collections include:

Finley Collection - Contains the essential titles related to exploration and early development of the
Strong Collection - Historically significant maps, photographs and reports from early United States exploration of the American
Ray D. Smith Collection -- books, maps and manuscripts centering around the Civil War
Hemingway Collection - manuscripts and first editions of Hemingway and the "Lost Generation" of American expatriate writers
Famulener Collection - Prints include works by Rembrandt, Durer and other printmakers of the 17th and 18th centuries

HISTORY Hiram Huntington Kellogg, Knox College's first president, acquired the first collection of books for Knox during a trip to Europe in 1843-1844. Together with volumes donated by Galesburg families, these occupied a room in the College's earliest building.