History
Starting in 1895, the library began as a small collection in one main room. It consisted of several hundred books donated or paid for by the Charles Duncan McIver and his family, the faculty, and the students. By 1900, library had moved to the former gymnasium and had grown to over three thousand volumes. Later known as the Carnegie Library, the major expansion of 1923 tripled the building's capacity to over 20,000 volumes; the growing library collection reached 60,000 by 1930. In 1934 a fire destroyed the Carnegie Library building, although much of the stacks collection survived with only water damage. After years of planning and interruptions from WWII, the Walter Clinton Jackson Library was built in 1950. This older portion of the library still stands and houses much of the library administration and special collections. In 1964 the library became a federal document depository; it still retains the status as a selective depository for U.S. government documents, as well as a full depository for State documents. A nine-story tower addition was built to the main building in the 1970s, making it a landmark on campus.
The University Libraries grew out of Jackson Library. As faculty and students came increasingly to rely on technology, a Learning Resources Center was created in 1982. Under Chancellor Sullivan, a new School of Music Building was opened in 1999 housing a separate Music Library.
Read more about this topic: UNCG University Libraries
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)