Welcome to Jordan Library! This well-appointed facility includes the W.D. Jordan Special Collections Reading Room, the Graham George Seminar Room, a conservation workroom, and extensive audio-visual facilities. The music collection is housed on the Jordan Library level. Special Collections, including Rare Books and Edith & Lorne Pierce Canadiana Collections, are housed in environmentally-controlled, closed stacks in the lower levels of the building.

• W.D. Jordan Library Interactive Floorplans
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What's Inside the W.D. Jordan Special Collections and Music Library

Library Tour

The Jordan circulation desk is located by the library's main entrance. Stop here for general information, or to request retrieval of audio recordings or items from the Special Collections.

Most of the library's collection is non-circulating, meaning that the items cannot be taken out of the library. Many of the items, including old, rare, or valuable items from Special Collections, or CDs and LPs from the music collection, are stored in staff-only areas. Library staff will retrieve these items for you.

Like other campus libraries, Jordan is equipped with public workstations (to the right of the circulation desk) and a photocopier (beyond the desk, before the elevator).

Network printing jobs are sent to the printer station one floor below, in the Engineering & Science Library. Colour printing is also available at the ground floor printer station.

In order to print or photocopy, you will need a library copy card. Cards can be purchased from the Engineering & Science Library Circulation desk on the ground floor. If you need to add value to your copy card, visit the ground floor value-add station, located inside the main entrance, beneath the information display screen.

Items of particular interest from the Special Collections are displayed in cases located in the library's main entryway.

• Printing
• Photocopying
• Copy Cards
• Scanning

The Graham George Seminar Room is located off the main entryway, just beyond the public access workstations. The room is equipped for Music seminars and tutorials.

The library also features two small-group listening rooms, located to the immediate right of the library's main entrance. Music books and scores, bound journals and current periodicals are located beyond this area in the library's south wing.

Individual listening stations can be found immediatedly inside the south wing entryway, to the right. Two video stations are located to the left of the entryway, adjacent to the washrooms.

Study tables are located in the current periodicals section towards the end of the south wing, behind the bound journals.

The Reference area is located to the left of the library's main entrance. Visit this desk for reference and research assistance.

Jordan library houses extensive historical records from the region, making it quite popular with family historians seeking to uncover their familial heritage. The Geneaology Corner is located beyond the W.D. Jordan Special Collections Reading Room, at the far end of the Reference area.

Items retrieved from Special Collections may be viewed in the W.D. Jordan Special Collections Reading Room. Specific guidelines are in place to help maintain and preserve these old, rare and valuable items.

• Special Collections Access Guidelines

Most visitors do not have the opportunity to visit the Special Collections stacks. Although the stacks retain historic features, including steep stairwells and narrow passageways, they have been upgraded with modern climate-control features to maintain and preserve these treasured collections. Visit our Flickr page for more Special Collections pictures.

The dedication plaque mounted in the library honours the benefactors who made possible the library as it exists today. A number of rare and valuable items and collections held in the library have also been acquired through the through the generosity of donors, beginning with six volumes donated to Queen's in 1840 by Judge James Mitchell, MA.