About the Drexel University Libraries

Our Mission

The Drexel University Libraries connects the Drexel community with people, resources, and expertise to support experiential learning and impactful research. 

Organization Overview

The Drexel University Libraries serves a constituency of more than 26,000 students, faculty, and staff, providing support for academic achievement, lifelong learning, and the advancement of Drexel's status as an R1 research university. The Libraries' collections include more than 1.9 million print and online resources, including books, journal articles, newspapers, and other media that have been carefully selected to support Drexel's multidisciplinary curriculum and research needs.

The Drexel Libraries' main physical location is the W. W. Hagerty Library, located in the heart of the University City campus. Additionally, the Libraries operates the former Salus University Learning Resources Center on the Elkins Park campus. It also supports the operations, services, and initiatives shared with the Library & Archives of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and the Legacy Center Archives and Special Collections and collaborates closely with the Legal Research Center of Drexel University's Thomas R. Kline School of Law, also located in the W. W. Hagerty Library building. The Libraries also has an extensive and dynamic digital infrastructure that extends its resources and services beyond the physical library to a global audience.

The Drexel Libraries hosts the Drexel University Archives and, in the context of the Libraries, Collections, and Archives division of Drexel University’s Office of the Provost, it partners with other collections to advance and activate the University’s archival and artifact collections in teaching, learning, and research, while also making these holdings accessible to the broader research community.

While prioritizing service to the Drexel student body and academic community, the Drexel Libraries also maintains regular hours during which the public is welcome to use a selection of its spaces and physical collections. The Drexel University Archives is also open to the public by appointment.  

Our History

At the opening of the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry in 1891, the Library and Reading Room occupied a prominent location on the first floor of the Main Building. In its first year, the Library developed a collection of nearly eight thousand volumes through gifts and donations from Drexel's founder, Anthony J. Drexel, and his business partner, George W. Childs. The Standish Collection of rare books was acquired in 1898. The first director of the Drexel library and founder of the library school was Alice B. Kroeger (1864-1909), a former student of Melvil Dewey. Kroeger was followed by a series of prominent female librarians, all of whom were prolific writers and active members of the American Library Association. These directors led both the Library and Library School (the third such school to open in the United States and currently the second oldest in the nation) until 1962, when the leadership of Library and Library School was separated.

The Library moved to its own building in 1959, an unusual hexagonal structure, bordered on one side by Woodland Avenue; the building was later renamed the Korman Center and now houses academic and information technology functions. The Library moved across 33rd Street into the newly constructed W. W. Hagerty Library in 1983. In 2002, Drexel's merger with Medical College of Pennsylvania/Hahnemann University resulted in the addition of the Queen Lane and Hahnemann Health Sciences Libraries to the Drexel University Libraries. With the consolidation of the College of Medicine and the College of Nursing and Health Professions operations on the University City campus in 2022, the Hahnemann and Queen Lane Libraries were decommissioned in 2023.