College of Veterinary Medicine Library Adds E-Books Thanks to Endowment Fund

The Charles Allen Cary Veterinary Medical Library at Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine recently expanded its catalog with 65 e-books purchased through the College of Veterinary Medicine Library Endowment.

Rob Buchanan, head of the Cary Library, said that this is the first major purchase of e-books and was only possible because of the funds provided by the endowment.

“What’s nice about these e-books is that you can download the  chapters you need and there’s no limit on the number of simultaneous users,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan said he believes that this is the first time the endowment has been used since its inception in 1992.

The endowment was begun by Dr. Wilford Bailey, renown veterinary faculty member and former Auburn president, and Dr. J.T. Vaughan, the fifth dean of the college, as an initiative to help the college during a budget crisis that was ongoing at the time, and to ensure that academic resources would be affected as little as possible by financial restrictions. The initiative was also part of the celebration of the Charles Allen Cary Centennial and the 85th anniversary of the college.

The initiative asked college alumni to donate $10 for every year since they had graduated until 1992. To date, the endowment has raised more than $200,000 to support the library in maintaining and expanding its catalogue and facilities.

The Cary Library currently maintains a collection of more than 30,000 volumes and approximately 120 active paper serial subscriptions, as well as access to over 7,000 online scholarly journals. These materials reflect current research and information needs of the students, faculty and staff of the college, as well as other Auburn colleges in agriculture, biomedical sciences, nursing, pharmacy and zoology.