Since
the school’s founding in 1892, the library has played a central role in
supporting faculty research and student learning. From its humble beginnings of being located
in a small classroom to its current massive holdings of analog and digital
holdings, the library has sought to keep pace with emerging scholarly trends,
changing researcher needs, evolving uses of technology, as well as a growing
student population. This second blog
post about the history of the library at UNCG will examine the profound changes
in its collections and space between the years 1945 to 1974.
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| Carnegie Library Building |
At
the time of the school’s celebration of its fiftieth anniversary in 1942, the Woman’s
College of the University of North Carolina (UNCG) library was considered the
largest woman’s college library in the South.
Its staff of eleven professionals supported the needs of 2,300 students
and 300 faculty. Yet, library administrators
and college faculty declared that the current facility was “inadequate” in accommodating
the growing collections. The library’s
director (Guy Lyle) and the Faculty Library Committee worked together to build
a “case” for the construction of a new library building. Lyle noted that the library had seen a marked
growth in collections and patrons since 1923.
Drawing on its annual statistics over the past 20 years, Lyle found that
the number of faculty had grown by 101%, the student body had grown by 75.9%,
the number of titles in the collections had grown by 441%, and the over-all
circulation of titles had grown by 175%.
Lyle also noted that the seating capacity of the library had only
increased by 14.7% since 1923. During
the course of the war years (1941-1945), a number of Greensboro newspaper
articles raised the issue of the library’s “space crunch” by referencing Lyle’s
key talking point that the facility’s seating capacity had not kept pace with
the growth of its student population.
Before Guy Lyle left to take a position at Louisiana State University in
1944, he had the Winston-Salem architecture firm of Northup and O’Brien develop
drawings and a conceptual plan for a new library. His successor, Charles M. Adams, would rely heavily
on these designs as he advocated for a new building.
In
1945, Woman’s College submitted a request to the North Carolina General Assembly
for monies to build a new library. Dr.
Walter Clinton Jackson, Dean of Administration, stated that $380,000 was needed
for the new structure. As the Advisory
Budget Commission considered this funding request, the library’s director Charles
Adams continued to make his case to the general public. Quoted in a December 1946 article in the
school’s newspaper, Adams stated that the “present quarters are so crowded that
it is nothing short of a shocking academic situation.” Adams also noted that the current library
could only seat 10% of the student body while the new library was expected to
seat upward of 50% of the student body.
In this same article, it was mentioned that the cost of the new library
now stood at $1,128,400.
With
the North Carolina General Assembly approving this funding request in 1947, contractors
quickly submitted bids for the $1.1 million dollar project. The new building project was to be located on
Walker Avenue between McIver and Forest Streets. The city of Greensboro approved the permanent
closing of this portion of Walker Avenue on campus. While there was some local opposition to this
shift in traffic patterns, a groundbreaking ceremony was held on September 27,
1948. Surrounded by dignitaries,
faculty, and students, Chancellor Walter Clinton Jackson wielded a pick axe and
a shovel to formally mark the start of construction. Jackson stated that the new building marked
“the beginning of a new era of greater usefulness of the college to the people
of the state.” The building project
started in earnest in October 1948 with the grading of the land. The installation of steel girders took place
throughout the winter months. The
building quickly took shape and was completed in March 1950. During the College’s exam period in 1950, the
library staff relocated the collections from the Carnegie library to the new
space. The College supplied canvas
laundry baskets in which the books were packed in. To expedite the moving of books from the
second floor of the Carnegie building, the laundry baskets were sent down
chutes into waiting moving trucks! The
new library building opened on June 5, 1950.
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| Walter Clinton Jackson Viewing the New Library Building |
The
structure was built to be fire-proof by employing a steel frame and reinforced
concrete floors and roof. All floors
were designed for a live load of 100 pounds per square foot. The floors were covered in terrazzo. The building contained an elevator for staff
to move collections between floors as well as a pneumatic tube system to assist
with the sending of call cards to all floors for book retrieval. Air-conditioning was only provided on the
first floor of the three story building.
The exterior of the building featured sand-finish colonial face brick
and white Georgia marble. The main entrance
of the library featured a marble columned portico.
The
building was designed to meet the projected future growth of the student
population from its current 2,300 students to 3,000 students. The seating capacity was set at 1,384 seats
(which included seats in the reading room, seminar rooms, study carrels, and
lecture hall). And, the building’s new
book stacks areas now had the capacity to handle 300,000 titles which was more
than double its current holdings. The
design also allowed for special services that ranged from seminar rooms for
faculty, a small lecture space for book talks, a large lecture room for
classes, a student lounge, and sound-proof rooms for audio listening. Interestingly, access to the collections was
restricted to those students who were given a “stacks permit” (mostly juniors
and seniors).
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| New Library Building, c. 1955 |
After
ten years of service, the “new” library building was formally named the Walter
Clinton Jackson Library in 1960 in honor of the former Chancellor. At the same time, the building was already
reaching its projected capacity for titles and patrons. Indeed, the library was already installing
extra shelving in the stacks areas as well as in seminar rooms to accommodate new
acquisitions.
With
Woman’s College becoming a co-educational University in 1963, the library was now
required to support new graduate programs and an ever-growing student
population. By 1964, the library’s
director Charles Adams began to consider plans for an addition to the building. To assist the planning process, Adams turned to
the architecture firm, Odell and Associates of Charlotte, to develop a plan for
the addition. Odell and Associates
recommended the construction of a ten-story structure to be located at the rear
of the present library building. The
designers consciously designed a building whose features differed greatly from
the more traditional brick and marble Jackson Library. The bright white concrete clad tower embodied
the architectural approach known as Brutalism.
Nevertheless, the two distinct buildings would be connected and function
as one facility. The designs and
conceptual plan were submitted to the University and to the North Carolina
General Assembly.
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| Walter Clinton Jackson Library |
In
1967, the General Assembly authorized funding of the addition. However, it was only in 1969 that the General
Assembly actually appropriated funds.
The leadership of the library changed in 1969-1970. Charles Adams retired. Elizabeth Holder served as the acting
director until a search was completed.
Dr. James Thompson was hired in July 1970 to oversee the library and the
coming building project. He immediately
began to work with the architects to realize the construction of the ten story
addition and the renovation of the 1950 building. The 1971 General Assembly allocated
$4,240,000 to pay for the addition, along with $185,000 for renovations to the
existing Jackson Library. Additional
funds were allocated to relocate the intersection of Walker Avenue and Forest
Avenue to accommodate the new building.
Construction
on the tower addition began in early February 1972. At that time, the University had 6,983 students
and its collections contained 614,098 items. These numbers were more than double what had
been planned for the original 1950 building.
The library’s director noted that “Jackson Library is a fine building” but
that the goals of the University had changed.”
So, the current space was inadequate for instruction, collections, and
research programs. Thompson stated that
the library addition would provide 119,000 square feet of floor space. The addition would also increase the number
of student seating as well as increase the number of student carrels from 49 to
271 spaces. With the combined spaces of
the current Jackson Library and the tower addition, Dr. James Thompson declared
that there would be enough future growth space to house a total of one million
volumes.
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| Library Tower Under Construction, c. 1973 |
The
tower project was completed in October 1973.
Starting in November 1973, the library staff moved 500,000 books to the
tower addition. The move would take
place over three days. During the entire
move operation, the library remained open to meet the needs of its 7,856
students and 400 faculty. With the books
relocated, the construction project turned to renovating the 1950 portion of
the library complex. Those renovations
would be completed in fall 1974. At the
completion of the construction and renovation projects, Dr. Thompson estimated
that it would take UNC Greensboro 10 to 15 years to fill up the building with
books at its present acquisition rate.
Thompson’s prediction was largely correct. Over the next decade, the library would need
to address advances in library technology, continued increases in student
enrollment, space, and the growing costs of acquiring new collections.
