The Richard Bland College Library, located on the first floor of the Campus Student Center, is a comfortable, well-lighted facility seating up to 195 students. It is an open stack collection providing easy access to over 68,000 volumes, 125 periodicals, 8 daily and weekly newspapers, ranging in scope from local to international, 640 maps, over 5000 spoken and musical recordings as well as CD-ROMS, 1611 videos, 1484 DVDs, and 43,484 eBooks.

A Microfilm reader/printer is available for reproducing microfilm material and a standard copier is maintained behind the circulation desk for other copying needs. There is a Television/VCR and a DVD player for in-house viewing. In addition, there are several listening and study rooms.

Collection Highlights

The RBC Library has an extensive reference collection and a comprehensive collection of books in English and American literature covering all periods of time. The history collection emphasizes American and European history with a broad collection of books on the Civil War and the Second World War. The library also has extensive religion and philosophy sections within the collection. In addition, the library has a special collection of books on Petersburg and Southside Virginia. These are housed in a separate "Virginia Room."

Interlibrary Loan

Richard Bland College Library is a member of SOLINET, an on-line database which allows access to collections throughout the United States for Interlibrary Loan.

Richard Bland College Library is a participant in the VIVA project (The Virtual Library of Virginia). The goal of VIVA is "to increase the availability of fundamental information, as well as scientific and scholarly materials, for instruction and research use by students and faculty of all publicly supported universities and colleges in Virginia." Requests for loan materials are delivered within 48 hours to the requesting library.

Cooperative Resource Sharing

Agreements exist with a variety of area agencies and other institutions of higher education to allow student use of their library holdings.

Richard Bland College is a member of the Richmond Area Library Consortium composed of J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Randolph-Macon College, Richard Bland College, Union Theological Seminary, University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia State Library, and Virginia Union University. A Richard Bland College RALC borrowing Pass may be obtained from the Library. As a member of RALC, Richard Bland College Library has access to hundreds of videos and films for use on our campus.

Computer Lab

Through the courtesy of the computer lab, eight PC computers are available in the library for student use.

Reference Services

Library orientation is available throughout the year. Students sign up for regular scheduled tours or individualized tours. Professors also conduct library tours for their classes.

On-line Services

Richard Bland College has installed an integrated library information system in conjunction with The College of William and Mary. This system developed by the SIRSI Corporation will allow users access to the bibliographic records in the libraries. Other online services allow access to resources available on the Internet as well as provide access to catalogs of other libraries.

General Policies

Books are checked out for a 3-week period and can be renewed. Some books and journal articles are placed on reserve at the circulation desk and have limited circulation.