History
The original library of the University of Houston was established in 1927 when the school was known as Houston Junior College. With 1,988 volumes, the library was housed as a section of the San Jacinto High School library, where the college shared building space. Ruth Wikoff was the school's first professional librarian. At the request of Wikoff, President Edison Oberholtzer relocated the library to its own space by converting the high school's music room.
After Houston Junior College became the University of Houston in 1934, and moved to its current location in 1939, the library was housed in the Roy G. Cullen building; UH's first permanent building. Although originally having only three staff members, the library continued to grow by continually annexing more rooms in the building. In 1940, the library had over 12,200 volumes, and by 1951, the library had 50,000. This same year, the library, with several benefactors' help and the M.D. Anderson Foundation, was able to build the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library as a new location. Hugh Roy Cullen and Leopold Meyer donated enough money to add 6,000 more volumes to the library before it was moved into the new building. Four years later, the library's volumes reached 145,000, and expenditures were $200,000.
The university then expanded the library services by creating the University of Houston Libraries system. The Weston A. Pettey Optometry Library began as a reading room in 1952 when the College of Optometry opened. In 1967, the Pharmacy Library was established in the Lamar Fleming building on-campus to primarily serve the university's College of Pharmacy. However, in 2010, the Pharmacy library was closed and its collections integrated in the main library to allow the College of Pharmacy to reclaim the space. Today, there are six branches.
In 1968, an eight-story tower was added to M.D. Anderson Library, and the Brown wing of the library was added in 1977. The most substantial changes to M.D. Anderson Library took place in 2004 when a new wing was added. The new wing was built as a front entrance to the library, along with the John O'Quinn Atrium, and a 24-hour lounge area. The university hired James Sanborn, of Kryptos fame, to build a sculpture for the library. The sculpture, entitled A,A, was erected in front of the library in June 2004.
Alfred R. Neumann Library
The Bayou Building is also home to the Alfred R. Neumann Library. UHCL’s library, the 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m2) UHCL’s library, the 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m2) Neumann Library contains over 480,000 volumes, 1.8 million microform items, and over 1000 journal and periodical subscriptions. The library has online access to over 100 subscription-only research databases and the Texshare interlibrary loan service which allows students to check out items from any academic or public library in Texas. Additionally, the library houses the university archives, which includes the NASA Johnson Space Center History Collection
Read more about this topic: University Of Houston Libraries
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)