A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY

When the first library director, Nurit (Roitberg) Bar-Gad, 
was hired in 1965, she was charged with building "something 
out of nothing."  The Institute for Higher Education in the 
Negev (as the University was then called) had acquired, 
along with Beit Hias (Hias House), which had previously been 
a hostel, a collection of 1,500 books on the history and 
geography of Israel, with an emphasis on the Southern Region.  
To these books were added a collection of duplicate copies 
from the National Library in Jerusalem as well as gifts left 
to the library by individuals.
  
The library was housed in the same room that had served as 
the hostel library.  In the next four years, the library 
expanded to the top floor of Beit Hias as well.  By 1969 
plans for a new library building on the university's new 
campus were in the hands of the Nadler Architectural Firm 
of Tel Aviv.  The cornerstone laying for the new library, 
on February 23, 1971, was the first ceremony to take place 
on the new site.  The new central library was named for 
Zalman Aranne, Minister of Education at the time the 
Institute for Higher Education in the Negev was founded.  
The Beit Hias Library remains in use as the university's 
life sciences library, although plans are to transfer this
collection also to the Aranne Library building.

  
By 1971 the library's collection had grown to 70,000 volumes 
and 1,300 journal titles.  Ten years later, in 1981, there 
were 300,000 volumes in the collection and 3,700 journal 
titles.  As of October 2000, the library has a collection 
of almost 800,000 volumes, including 540,000 monographic volumes, 
5000 journal titles (260,000 journal volumes) and subscriptions
to over 100 electronic databases.The library's agreements with
journal publishers and database providers enable the reader to
access many articles online in full-text. As the largest library
and only university library south of Jerusalem, the Ben-Gurion 
University Library serves all the residents of the Negev.

In 1983, the library began to computerize its catalog using 
Aleph software.  By the end of 1988, the greater majority 
of the collection had been entered into the computer;  and 
in late 1989, the computerization of the library's catalog 
was completed. The library computer provides direct access 
to the catalogs of Israel's other university libraries.  
Aleph-Web, the internet version of the catalog, also links
directly to full-text electronic journals.The library also
uses Aleph to maintain its circulation and acquistions files
and for budgetary management.

The library houses five special collections:
The Tuviyahu Archives of the Negev
The Amos Oz Personal Archive
The Art Room
The Audio-Visual Room
The Rare Book Room

Bibliography:

Hadari, Zeev, Perakim be-Toldot ha-Universitah. Be'er Sheva, 1984.

"Ha-Sifriyah ha-Merkazit be-Universitat ha-Negev, Be'er Sheva" Arkhitekturah:
Shenaton Yisrael le-Arkhitekturah u-Vinuy 'Arim. 1979, 42-47.

Selected original documents from the office of the Library Director.

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