Dorothy Holden and Matthew Holden, Jr. Reading Room

Nearly 4,000 volumes were donated by Dr. Matthew Holden, Jr., the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Professor Emeritus of the University of Virginia, and Dorothy Holden. Professor Holden, a native of Mound Bayou Mississippi, served as president of the American Political Science Association in 1999. The library represents the deep intellectual roots of Dr. Holden's teaching, public service, and scholarship. Holden, the author or co-author of more than 30 books and articles, served as the former commissioner of the Federal Regulatory Commission and the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. Matthew Holden, Jr. and, his wife, Dorothy Holden are co-founders of the Isaiah T. Montgomery Studies Project, a research venture focused on county-level historical, political and policy studies.

The Dorothy Holden and Matthew Holden, Jr. Reading Room is now open and ready for use. An eight-hour reading room, located in Room 3 of Johnson Hall, it features a conference room setting with comfortable chairs, journals, books and commission reports from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Materials on the Atlantic slave-trade, the US founding and constitutional law, African American politics, regulatory policy, administrative law, the sociology of race, Black-Jewish relations, African-American literature, British history, presidential politics, Southern Africa, China, Japan, and philosophy are among the items donated to Jackson State University by Professor Holden. In Room 5 is an integrated service desk that facilitates the use of Holden Reading Room materials, secure book borrowing and loan policies and course reserve readings for faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and the School of Policy and Planning.

Browse the holdings of the Dorothy Holden and Matthew Holden, Jr. Reading Room.

The Holden Reading Room offers a multi-media monitor, capable of displaying television signals, VCR and DVD video, and computer-based presentations or slide shows. It is possible to reserve the room for faculty learning committees, small symposia for the presentation of working papers, and PhD advisement. All administrators, faculty, and PhD students are welcome to read in the Center. To check out materials or reserve the room, please contact Mrs. Zelda Greathree at (601) 979-6949 or zelda.d.greathree@jsums.edu.

JSU hopes that faculty, PhD students, and other interested scholars in the community, state, and nation will make great use of the Holden Reading Room with its broad range of readings and its, quiet and supportive atmosphere.