Library

The Corrigan Memorial Library at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, NY is a theological research library which serves the priestly formation needs for candidates to the Roman Catholic priesthood.

In 1953, a new three-story library building completed the fourth and final side of Saint Joseph’s Seminary. At the formal dedication on October 4 of that year, Cardinal Spellman paid special tribute to the founder of the seminary for whom the new library was named:

In the original plan of Archbishop Corrigan, the library occupied a central place in the building to impress on the students the absolute necessity of serious study in the life and work of the priest.

The library provides services to the seminarians of Saint Joseph’s Seminary and the Saint John Neumann Seminary College, as well as to the non-seminarian students in the Master's Program, and the candidates in the Permanent Diaconate Program. Scholars and other students with administrative approval have on-site privileges.

The library has a collection of over 103,000 printed bound volumes, including more than 2,500 bound periodicals that were published before 1925 and many more before the turn of the 20th century. The library also possesses a collection of rare books, some of which date from the 16th century.

In March 2003, the library was commended by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and the Association of Theological Schools, which stated that “the library is one of the Seminary’s great assets.”

Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) provides web access to the card catalog. To promote scholarly research, the library subscribes to several databases and thirty-four e-journals.

Information Literacy (knowing how to find information, evaluate it, and use it effectively) workshops are provided for students. The evolving technology is a welcome challenge to promote the academic goals of a Catholic theologate.