Academic and Professional Resources

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Last Updated: Dec 19, 2023, 05:41 PM

SIU Altgeld building from above

Continuing Education

Extending the university's educational programs beyond regular courses and campus boundaries, the Division of Continuing Education offers to a variety of groups and individuals off-campus credit programs, an Evening/Weekend Program, non-credit classes, workshops and conferences, an Individualized Learning Program, and a contractual services program.

Economic and Regional Development

The university established the office of Economic and Regional Development (OERD) in 1986 as a means to improve the quality of life and economic climate in southern Illinois. Located in a building south of campus at the intersection of Route 51 and Pleasant Hill Road, OERD administers the Business Incubator, a facility offering rentable space for offices, light manufacturing, and wet/dry labs as well as support services for new or expanding businesses. In addition to the Business Incubator, OERD operates the Center for Rural Health and Social Services, and Manufacturing Extension Services.

Information Technology

Information Technology assists faculty, staff, and students in fulfilling the academic and administrative goals of the university. Consisting of five divisions -- Customer Services, Information Systems, Campus Systems, Micrographics, and Telecommunications and Computing Facilities -- Information Technology facilities and offices are located in Wham, Lentz, Faner, CTC, Student Center, Morris Library, Rehn, and McLafferty Road.

Computing Resources

The Information Technology computing facilities include a mainframe computer and various network servers. Computer Learning Centers with instructional laboratories and classrooms, equipped with over 240 microcomputers as well as various types of printers and plotters, are situated in three central locations (CLC1 in Faner 1025, CLC2 in CTC 112, CLC3 in Rehn 21). SIUC Online (formerly Campus-Wide Information System or CWIS) is the campus link to local and worldwide information resources. Access to the central computing utility may be from anywhere on or off campus.

Computing resources include a wide variety of systems, software, programming languages, on-line information, the Customer Service Center, and various forms of support to make the computing environment friendlier and more accessible to all staff and student users. Many services and support are available on a daily, round-the-clock basis.

Telecommunications

SIUnet, with over 8,500 telephones and 5,000 data network devices, gives SIUC users access to on- and off-campus computing resources. SIUnet links the Carbondale campus to SIU at Edwardsville, the SIU School of Medicine, Central Management Services in Springfield, State of Illinois agencies, the University of Illinois, and the SIUC campus in Nakajo, Japan.

International Programs

The office of the Executive Assistant to the Chancellor for International and Economic Development, includes the following international divisions:

  1. International Students and Scholars provides
    1. guidance in dealing with various U.S. governmental agencies, such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Internal Revenue Service
    2. various types of counseling (financial, family, personal);
    3. administration of international student scholarships, loans, and grants;
    4. orientation programs and advisement of international student associations.
  2. International Development provides services to faculty and staff interested in international grants, contracts, and educational exchanges; serves as a clearinghouse for information about various international activities; and coordinates visits by international dignitaries.
  3. Study Abroad aids American students and scholars by developing and administering travel/study and study-abroad programs, coordinating overseas programs (such as Fulbright Awards, British Marshal Scholarships, IREX Grants), and administering the International Student Exchange Program.

Law Library

The Law Library, located in the Lesar Law Building, is open over 90 hours a week year round except during those times when the university is closed. The Law Library collection exceeds 300,000 volumes and includes a complete collection of statutes, published court decisions, and administrative regulations for the federal government and all fifty states. The library subscribes to more than 1,300 legal journals and reviews and is both a federal and Illinois depository for government documents. A wide range of treatises, monographs, looseleaf services, and other commentaries on the law are also available. Most of the collection does not circulate outside the library, but photocopy facilities are available.

Morris Library

The major administrative components of Library Affairs are Reference Services and Collection Management, Special Collections and Development, Technical and Automation Services, and Instructional Services. The Ulysses S. Grant Association, which is editing and publishing the complete correspondence of President Grant, is also part of Library Affairs.

In addition to Morris Library with its staff of about 120, approximately 30 percent of whom are library faculty, there is a large storage facility on McLafferty Road for books, journals, and archives. Morris Library provides library users with substantial space for study (open study areas, group-study rooms, study carrels for faculty and doctoral students) and with access to duplicating machines for both paper and microforms, microform viewers, phonograph and compact disc players, film projection and video display equipment, and PC and CD-ROM workstations.

Collections

The library collection is an open-shelf collection which includes materials in a range of formats: paper (more than 2 million volumes), microform (about 3.2 million items), film, videotape, compact disc, phono record, CD-ROM, and floppy disk, is housed in four subject divisions. In addition, to their general collections, these divisions include other bodies of material.

  1. Social Studies Division: the Documents Center with approximately 360,000 documents in paper and 490,000 microfiche, including U.S. government and United Nations documents and the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) with over 2 million pages on more than 170 of the world's cultures.
  2. Humanities Division: an 18,000 item collection of sound recordings.
  3. Educational and Psychology Division: the Instructional Materials Center with collections of curriculum guides, children's literature (both recent and historical), amateur plays, recordings, filmstrips, three-dimensional educational aids, sample texts, reference works, and other materials useful to those working with juveniles and young adults.
  4. Science Library: the Map Library with over 200,000 maps and aerial photographs and 2,000 atlases.

There is an Undergraduate Library on the first floor with its smaller collection aimed at the needs of undergraduates. The Reserve Room and Self-Instruction Center are part of the Undergraduate Library. Also on the first floor is the Browsing Room with its collection of current books for recreational reading.

Special Collections, with offices on the second floor, contains manuscripts, rare books, and the university archives, the latter including selected non-current administrative files, university publications, theses, dissertations, and the papers of a number of faculty members. Important holdings include the John Dewey collection; First Amendment Freedoms; American, British, and Irish literature; political and proletariat theater; southern Illinois history; the archives of the Open Court Press, the Christian Century magazine, and the Library of Living Philosophers. The Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD), locally supervised by Special Collections and housed in the Library Storage Facility on McLafferty Road, contains the non-current records of the 23 southernmost counties in the state.

Access to Collections

Information about currently received materials as well as most of the library's older collections is available through ILLINET Online (IO), a computerized catalog which provides author, title, subject, and keyword access to the holdings of more than 800 academic and public libraries throughout Illinois.

Professional Services

Librarians are available to present lectures to classes on particular library subjects and Instructional Support Services provides orientation to the library and its many computerized tools as well as instructional evaluation services (optical scanning for examinations, research data, and course and instructor evaluation questionnaires).

Museum

The basic mission of the University Museum, which was founded in 1869, is to collect, preserve, exhibit, and interpret those objects, artifacts, and specimens of southern Illinois and the surrounding region. The museum also has an educational mission offering an undergraduate minor in Museum Studies and a museum administration specialty within the Master of Public Administration program.

Research Development and Administration

The Office of Sponsored Projects Administration (OPSA) works to facilitate and promote research and sponsored project activities on campus. It is the office through which grants and contracts for research, training, and service projects are applied for, negotiated, and accepted. 

ORDA notifies faculty and staff of funding opportunities, offers grant proposal development services, processes proposals and awards, and handles award administration matters such as budget revisions and subcontracts. It coordinates internal grant programs that provide resources for faculty and student projects, and it provides technology transfer services and guidance on intellectual property protection. Finally, it plays a key role in formulating and monitoring SIUC policies governing research and sponsored projects. 

OPSA's web site and various publications keep faculty and staff informed about research news, grant deadlines, and grant management procedures. Twice a year ORDA publishes Perspectives, a magazine describing some of the research and creative activities at SIUC. 

The Office of Research Development and Administration is located in Woody Hall C-206, MC 4709 (618/453-4540).

Touch of Nature Environmental Center

Established in 1949 as a center for outdoor learning, the Touch of Nature Environmental Center is located on a 3100-acre site approximately eight miles southeast of campus. Serving both the university and the public year round, the center provides dining and sleeping facilities capable of accommodating up to 400 people (including those with disabilities) for educational retreats, workshops, seminars, classes, and research projects. Touch of Nature offers programs in environmental education, adventure recreation, executive and staff development, and therapeutic recreation.