Walter Stiern Library

Walter W. Stiern Library

The Walter W. Stiern Library opened in 1994 and is the largest building on the California State University, Bakersfield campus. The 150,000 square-foot building houses nearly half a million volumes and provides electronic access to more than 30,000 periodical titles via its hundreds of computer terminals. The Library is managed and operated by 27 staff members and faculty librarians. The Library also maintains a branch library at the CSUB Antelope Valley campus in Lancaster. The Dean of Libraries oversees all operations and services.

The Building: Its Collections and Services

The five-story Library building is divided into a lower level and four upper floors. On the lower level, a large computer lab provides students with access to a variety of software applications. In addition to the lab, the lower level has five computer classrooms, three instructional television studios, a multi-media production lab, and a 24-hour study room.

The Library’s upper four floors are divided into service areas, collections and offices.

On the main floor, students can check out books, obtain research help from a librarian at the reference desk, borrow reserve materials, or use the reference computers to access resources. The Library’s users check out more than 70,000 items per year on average. The Interlibrary Loan Department, which performs more than 15,000 borrowing and lending transactions per year, is located on the first floor, as are the reference, juvenile, curriculum, law, and government document collections.

Also on the main floor, in the wood-paneled Dezember Reading Room, are the Pat Robles Multicultural Collection, the First-Year Experience Collection, the Dolores Cerro California History Collection, Faculty Book and current magazines on the display shelves. Administration and librarian offices are found on the first floor.

On the the second floor, students can watch DVDs, videos, or listen to CDs in the multimedia viewing area. The second floor houses 725,000 pieces on microfilm and contains the library’s extensive collection of print periodicals.

The third and fourth floors house the main book collection. This circulation collection is the largest academic book collection in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Group and individual study rooms are also found on these floors.

Librarians

Librarians, on average, answer more than 500 reference questions per week at the reference desk. They also provide online reference assistance through the 24-hour Question Point service and offer in-depth help to students through the Individual Research Assistance Program. Librarians, all of whom hold advanced degrees in library science, teach information competency courses and subject orientations.

Namesakes and Associates

The Library is named for Walter W. Stiern (1914-1987), a Kern County veterinarian who served 28 years in the State Senate and was instrumental in the establishment of CSUB. The Stiern Library Associates and our benefactors like the late Dr. George and Millie Ablin, for whom the Ablin Conference Room is named, Rayburn and Joan Dezember, for whom the Dezember Reading Room is named, and the late Dolores Cerro, for whom the Cerro California History Collection is named, have helped make possible the Library’s positive contribution to the university and community .