JOHN AND LOUISE HULST LIBRARY
Overview
The mission of the John and Louise Hulst Library is to bring together God's people, resources, spaces, and technology to enhance student learning, effective teaching, and Kingdom service.
The Hulst Library is a centralized facility that houses a collection of 285,000 volumes. The library subscribes to nearly 300 journals, magazines, and newspapers and has electronic access to another 58,500 titles. In addition to providing print and electronic resources, the library serves the campus' media needs by acquiring and circulating DVDs, iPads, projectors, netbooks, recorders, camcorders, cameras, GPS devices, VCRs, DVD players, MP3 players, CD players, and other media equipment. A collection of over 4,000 sound recordings resides in the library's Listening Room. The library has a significant collection of curriculum and children's literature materials housed in the Teacher Resource Center. Other specialized collections include the Dordt College Archives and the Dutch Memorial Collection.
Open nearly 90 hours per week during the academic year, the facility provides study space for over 300. The original building was constructed in 1966, but a significant renovation occurred in 2002 when the new Campus Center was built immediately adjacent to the Library. The renovation provided the library with a new entrance, a remodeled upper level, an expanded workroom, two additional offices, and an added multipurpose room. The proximity of the Campus Center allows students to make use of the extensive study spaces scattered throughout the building, and incorporates the library, academic offices and classrooms, lounges, food service outlets, and recreational facilities under one roof.
The library is also a central campus location of computing resources for students. With a multimedia computer lab on the lower level and additional multimedia PCs scattered throughout the upper level, students can search the library's web-based catalog to locate books and articles, access the Internet, send email, instant message, compose papers, create presentations, watch DVDs, and listen to music or other audio files. On the upper level of the library there is also a PC-based multimedia production station capable of digitizing audio and video content. The library has a wireless network in place to accommodate students using their own laptops.
