Welcome from the Dean

Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version

We’re here to help you get the most from your SIU experience. With state-of-the-art facilities, comprehensive services, and extensive collections, we invite you to explore our five floors of comfortable seating, 200 computer workstations, fifteen group study rooms, meeting rooms, and two computer classrooms. Exhibit spaces such as the Rotunda and Hall of Presidents and Chancellors offer an escape from the intensity of study while the Guyon Auditorium offers an inviting venue for films, presentations, and programs. Art is found throughout the building to satisfy a variety of aesthetic tastes.

Delyte’s Café, inside the north entrance, features beverages, sandwiches, and snacks in a casual, open environment designed for conversation and recharging, and it’s open 24/5 during academic semesters. The name Delyte’s honors the building’s namesake Delyte Wesley Morris. He served as SIU President from 1948 to 1970 and is remembered for transforming a regional college to today’s SIU, a highly-respected, comprehensive university recognized throughout the country for its innovative curriculum and ground-breaking research in many disciplines.

The physical collections with equipment and support to use them are found throughout the building on the floors noted in the table below. In addition to the physical collections and services, Morris Library provides a rich, diverse set of online resources including e-books journals, videos, databases, tutorials, and guides. Virtual guides, called LibGuides, prepared by our subject specialist librarians (known as liaisons) help you research independently at your convenience. We offer highly-responsive reference and consultation services through chat, text, email, and phone to supplement our outstanding face-to-face customer service provided at the Information Desk. The Circulation Desk is the place to go to check out a book, pick up an item you requested from our collection or another library, or use an item on reserve. Other support services—including the Help Desk, Center for Teaching Excellence, Writing Center, Math Lab, Honors Program, and Special Collections Research Center—will help you succeed in your academic efforts. All the service points or services are listed in the table below.

Visit the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) to locate an SIU photograph, a past issue of the Daily Egyptian, or use primary sources from one or more of our noteworthy, unique collections. In SCRC you’ll find outstanding collections on freedom of the press, political papers including those of Senator Paul Simon, philosophy, Irish literature by James Joyce and others, theater, and twentieth-century literature. While SCRC houses manuscripts, rare books, and archives, it provides vast stores of digital content at your fingertips 24/7.

The best is yet to come. In 2013 the top two floors of the building will be completed and will feature books, collaborative study spaces, classrooms, group study rooms, Learning Support Services, and Math Lab in flexible arrangements that students can adapt to create an environment conducive to productive work on any academic project. The design of the sixth and seventh floors will encourage both individual and group innovation.

We hope you will visit often and ask questions. We are here to help!