The excellence of Mid-America's academic education is augmented by the Seminary's resources. Mid-America's facility, built in 1995, houses classrooms, a chapel, a library, a student lounge, a cafeteria, and faculty and administrative offices. Designed in the Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie Style of architecture, Mid-America's facilities are attractive and provide a very conducive learning environment for students and faculty.

 

 

The focal point of Mid-America's attractive building is the sunny, spacious library. Its large windows and southern exposure brighten its open design. Comfortable seating and ample study stations enhance the inviting atmosphere. The library's essence, however is found in its collection. The Mid-America library includes holdings of approximately 40,000 volumes chosen to meet the Seminary's quest for Reformed excellence. Additionally, the library's Reformed Heritage Collection contains 4,500 monographs, periodicals, pamphlets and brochures of interest to the Reformed researcher. These materials, along with 6,500 bound references and periodical volumes, provide a solid theological resource center. In addition to the campus resources, students have access to other Chicago area seminary and university libraries through interlibrary loan. This is a significant given the fact that there are more university and seminary libraries in Chicago than in any other city in North America. The library also subscribes to a service that provides full text and search capability for thousands of important theological volumes.

The Seminary holdings are computerized and can be accessed on the internet through an on-line public access catalog (OPAC). Thus the entire collection can be searched (subject, title, author) either on or off campus. This cutting-edge technology is user-friendly and allows Mid-America to be linked to other Reformed seminaries. An expanded database of holdings of two other Reformed seminaries is valuable for interlibrary loan. The library staff seeks to make each student's use of the library both easy and enjoyable.

 

 

Students seeking additional instruction or doing specialized research will find a valuable resource in Mid-America's audio-visual library. This collection consists of approximately 5,000 cataloged sermons, speeches and lectures. In addition to the audio-visual library, the student audio-visual room houses recording and amplification equipment. Located next to the classrooms, this room is primarily used for listening to the library's audiocassettes or viewing its videotapes.

Mid-America's classrooms provide a comfortable environment conducive to learning. The Seminary operates a bookstore for the benefit of our students. Textbooks, a few basic theological and biblical tools, and used books are offered as inexpensively as possible. Occasional publishers' sales are offered, and students are given the opportunity to order for their personal libraries through the bookstore.