James Pape doesn’t think of Simpson Library as being the big brick building with all the books across from the Hurley Convergence Center.

“The library is the entire campus,” said Pape, Simpson’s access services and outreach librarian. “Students are still using the library when they’re reading books or other materials in their residence halls or apartments, or even when they’re using our databases to conduct research.”

A storehouse of sources, it has served since 1989 as the University’s knowledge center, supporting teaching, learning, research and service happenings on and off campus.

“On the outside, it may look much as it did when it opened 30 years ago, but inside we are evolving into a 21st-century library,” said University Librarian Rosemary Arneson, who pointed to online journals, a greater collection of electronic books than those in print and modern entities like the ThinkLab and Digital Archiving Lab. “At our heart, however, we continue to be committed to providing excellent service to the UMW community.” Read more.

The University of Mary Washington is a premier, selective public liberal arts and sciences university in Virginia, highly respected for its commitment to academic excellence, strong undergraduate liberal arts and sciences program, and dedication to life-long learning. The university, with a total enrollment of more than 5,000, features colleges of business, education and arts and sciences, and three campuses, including a residential campus in Fredericksburg, Va., a second one in nearby Stafford and a third in Dahlgren, Va., which serves as a center of development of educational and research partnerships between the Navy, higher education institutions and the region’s employers