The Reading Room collection, comprising approximately 7100 volumes, is housed in open stacks in the Reading Room. The collection is catalogued in the Dewey decimal system and is accessible through a card catalog. The library staff has judiciously added to and weeded the collection over the years. Nonetheless, its character is one of the turn-of-the-century, with many of its imprints dating to the period between 1860 and 1930. Fiction, biographies, bibliographies, American history books, books on philosophy and art, American Indian juvenile books, and volumes on the natural sciences and library science comprise many of the subject areas covered. The Reading Room’s general reference collection also includes modern dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, directories, almanacs, etc.
In recent years library staff members have concentrated on acquiring general reference, American Indian juvenile literature, Western American art, and New York State history titles with the limited funds available, feeling these materials are appropriate in the environment of a non-circulating collection.