
Brief Intro to Libraries, Centers, and Museums in University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a Public Ivy institution with a legacy dating back to 1883. UT Austin, as it is commonly known, is one of the largest centers for academic research with research expenditure nearing $600 million in 2009. The expansive UT Austin campus spans 423.5 acres with 150 buildings. The campus also houses seven museums and 17 libraries.
The Harry Ransom Center started way back in 1897 with the donation of 10,000 volumes from the personal collection of Swante Palm. Two decades later, the university decided to collect rare books from around the world and thus started the formidable collection. It is home to one of only 21 surviving copies of the Bible from the Guttenberg press.
Other collections and museums like The Blanton museum of art, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, the Texas Natural Science Center(Texas Memorial Museum), the School of Architecture Visual Resources Collection and many such collections make UT Austin an enviable education destination.
The specialist libraries at UT Austin are the result of more than a hundred years of efforts by donors, students, librarians, and faculty. Some of the better known and more frequented ones are Architecture and Planning Library, Alexander Architectural Archive, Benson Latin American Collection, Chemistry(Mallet) Library, Classics Library, Collections Deposit Library, Engineering(McKinney) Library, Fine Arts Library, Geology(Walter) Library, etc.
The University of Texas is also home to numerous specialist centers for academic, scientific, and cultural research. The Dolph Briscoe Center for American history is a formidable chronicle of America. It has varied collection ranging from the political, civil rights, military, and photographic history of the formation of the US. Other centers like the Learning Technology Center, the Fusion Research Center, the Linguistics Research Center, etc., form the foundations that make UT Austin a great academic institution.
University of Texas Overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_at_Austin
Harry Ransom Center - Mission and History
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/about/mission/
UT Libraries
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/admin/cird/
Dolph Briscoe Center
http://www.cah.utexas.edu/collections/index.php

