General Information

The A. H. Clifford Mathematics Research Library is an independent unit of the Tulane University Libraries. The library is located on the 4th floor of Gibson Hall in the Department of Mathematics.

The library was rededicated in 1994 in honor of Alfred Hoblitzelle Clifford. Its initial development and expansion was largely made possible through a Grant of $575,000 by the Ford Foundation to the Department of Mathematics through Tulane University. The grant was awarded in June 1964 and expired on December 31, 1967. Today, books and journal subscriptions for the Math collection are purchased by Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. 

The collection includes holdings of more than 31,000 volumes and approximately 370 current journal subscriptions with electronic access to more than 300 of those titles.

The Mathematics Research Library serves the faculty and graduate students of the Mathematics Department and all other sections of Tulane University in mathematics oriented research, as well as the New Orleans academic community.

Alfred Hoblitzelle Clifford
July 11, 1908 – December 27, 1992

Doctor of Philosophy, California Institute of Technology, 1933
Doctor of Science honoris causa, Tulane University, 1982

Distinguished Algebraist, co-founder and promoter of the Algebraic Theory of Semigroups, charismatic scholar and captivating teacher, having inspired with his probing mind many generations of Algebraists-students and colleagues alike. He was assistant to Herman Weyl at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1936 to 1938. He taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1938 until 1942. He served his country with distinction in the Second World War, and again during the Korean conflict. He was Associate Professor at John Hopkins University from 1945 to 1954, and then joined Tulane University in 1955 as Professor of Mathematics and Head of Sophie Newcomb College, and thereafter gave to this institution to the fullest as a scholar, as a teacher, and as a benefactor.