A report by the Association of Research Libraries ranked the College's library system 73rd among eligible institutions in the United States and Canada.
But College officials were quick to point out that Dartmouth is one of the smallest schools listed in the rankings and that the College also provides exceptional service.
The report, titled "Holdings of Research Libraries in U.S. and Canada, 1993-94," included statistics from 130 to 140 university libraries, according to Margaret Otto, the head of the College's library system.
Harvard University, which by far has the most volumes and the highest operating expenditures of any university library in the report, was ranked number one. The University of California at Berkeley was ranked second.
According to an abbreviated version of the report, published in the March 31 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dartmouth's libraries held 2.1 million volumes, compared with Harvard's 12.9 million.
Otto said she is not surprised by the results of the report, since Dartmouth's library system is among the smallest of the universities and colleges reviewed by the Association of Research Libraries.
"We are the smallest of all the Ivy League schools," she said. "We're smallest in terms of student body and graduate programs, so it's understandable we have fewer items in our collection."
Dartmouth's 73rd ranking is the lowest of the eight Ivy League schools. Following Harvard, Yale University was ranked third, Columbia University was seventh and Cornell University was 11th.
The association also ranked Princeton University 18th, the University of Pennsylvania 21st and Brown University 50th.
"We have a modest budget. If you just even took all the other Ivy League schools, I think you'll find all the other Ivies have larger budgets and larger staff," she said.
According to the report, Dartmouth's operating expenditures for the 1993-1994 academic year was $10.6 million. Harvard spent more than six times that amount.
Otto said she would like to see Dartmouth move up in the ARL rankings. "I think we always aim to look towards improvement," she said.
"It's a very competitive analysis," Otto said. "We're somewhere in the middle of the one hundred thirty to one hundred forty members of the ARL."
Deputy Provost Bruce Pipes said the report did not take certain factors into account.
"It probably doesn't properly recognize the relationship between the Dartmouth library to its primary audience -- the undergraduates," Pipes said.
Pipes said all the Dartmouth stacks are open to undergraduates, while at other universities the undergraduates do not have access to all the library resources.
Pipes added that Dartmouth is a liberal arts college, and that many of the libraries that ranked ahead of Dartmouth in the report were from large, research-oriented universities.
Still, she said it would be difficult for the College to get close to the top of the rankings.
"We can never aspire to be number one," she said, "because we can never compete with places like Harvard and Berkeley."
The Chronicle's abbreviated version of the report listed five categories on which the results were based.
The categories listed were: number of volumes in library, number of volumes added during the previous fiscal year, number of current serials, size of permanent staff and total operating expenditures.
According to Otto, the Association of Research Libraries considered a total of 18 factors.
The Chronicle's version omitted categories such as the number of micro-form holdings and number of items loaned, she said.
