From The Toronto Star:
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL), based in Washington, D.C., has ranked the University of Toronto libraries as third-best in its annual Library Investment Index, behind Ivy League schools Harvard University and Yale University.
The index measures how much a university invests in its library by looking at the number of volumes it has, how many it’s added over the last year and how much it spends on salaries, among other things. The latest rankings are for data collected from 2010-11.
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Larry Alford, chief librarian for the University of Toronto libraries, said the ranking is symbolic of the University of Toronto’s “extraordinary collections which have been built over several generations.”
“The ranking is really an indication of the depth and breadth of those collections (and) the extraordinary staff who make them accessible in all kinds of ways.”
The University of Toronto library system has more than 12 million books, including electronic books, and 44 libraries, Alford said. It’s considered the largest academic library system in Canada.
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See Also: ARL Releases Library Investment Index 2010-11 Data (August 16, 2012)