F. W. Olin Library, Mills College

The inviting F. W. Olin Library houses a collection of over 240,000 volumes and other media supporting the curricular needs of the College, with special emphases on literature, history, women's studies, art, and music.

The interior of the building was designed with comfort and accessibility in mind and includes study and workstations of appealing variety, a listening-viewing room with fully equipped audiovisual stations, and a seminar room. Computer workstations are available throughout the library to access library databases, the Internet, email, or word processing. Library facilities are fully wheelchair-accessible, and special services for disabled students are available.

The library is also home to the Special Collections of 12,000 volumes and 10,000 manuscripts, including a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, a Mozart manuscript, and a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible. Housed in the Heller Rare Book Room, the collections include printed books from the 15th century to the present, as well as the Mills College Collection. It is also the home of the Mills Center for the Book, a forum for cultural, literary, and aesthetic heritage of the book.

The library is open 88.5 hours a week during the semester. Reference librarians are available until 9:00 pm most weekdays and until 6:00 pm Sundays to help students organize their research efforts and make the best use of library resources. Library staff also teach students how to find and use bibliographic and electronic resources pertinent to specific needs or assignments.