The Libraries seek to support research in contemporary electrical engineering use of electrical and electromagnetic signals for the generation, transmission, processing, storage, conversion and control of information and energy, telecommunications, microelectronics, digital systems, photonics, and Very Large Scale Integrated circuits (VLSI). It supports the needs of undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. students, the teaching faculty, post-docs, researchers and staff members.

During the first half of the 1990’s, the total population of faculty, masters and Ph.D. students, post-docs and researchers has remained steady. The undergraduate enrollment has gone up in the School of Engineering because of the University's efforts to strengthen the undergraduate education at Columbia.

The Center for Telecommunications Research (CTR) is at the forefront conducting research in five rapidly growing areas vital to the development of future technology: communications and information processing, solid state and integrated electronics, ultrafast optics and photonics, VLSI systems and computer aided design and electromagnetics and plasmas.

Areas of established specialization include the conception and realization of Novel telecommunications networks, systems, and services that fully integrate all means of conveying information voice, data, graphics, and video. This is interdisciplinary effort involving faculty and researchers from four engineering departments. In addition there are several areas of research and specialization which are described in CTR publications and bulletins.

Overall, the Libraries’ existing collection, its current acquisitions commitment, based upon available resources, and its collecting goal for Electrical Engineering are all at the research level.

1. Formats collected: We collect annuals, monographs, periodicals, reference tools, scholarly series, CD-Roms and textbooks selectively. Dissertations and other electronic tools are collected very selectively. We do not presently collect maps, newspapers or audio/visual materials relating to Electrical Engineering.
2. Imprint Dates Collected: We collect current publications extensively, twentieth-century materials selectively and earlier materials are excluded.
3. Chronological Focus: We collect materials focusing on current topics extensively, twentieth-century topics are collected selectively and all others are excluded
4. Languages Collected: We collect English language materials extensively.
5. Place of Publication: We collect publications from North America and Western Europe including UK, Germany and France extensively and materials published in Japan and Australia selectively.