University Libraries

Libraries at this university have a long history. The collecting of items for a library began in 1875, only two years after UC was recognized as a public university. In 1883, a working library was established in the College of Liberal arts, with a general library opening in 1894.[1] In 1901, the Van Wormer Library opened, made possible through a gift by a student of the university, Asa Van Wormer; this was given on the terms that there would be a stone tablet inside the building with an inscription stating that the library was built with money given by him in memory of himself and his wife Julia.

Van Wormer Library, ca. 1920s

Courtesy of Archives & Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati

These terms were accepted, and Van Wormer gave UC stock shares worth $50,000 at the time, equivalent to over $1,000,000 today. By 1904, 600 students attended the university, with 150 faculty members. The Van Wormer library had a collection of around 40,000 volumes at that time. However, by the 1920s, the collection had overgrown the small library, numbering over 100,000 volumes, and a planning committee to build a new library was created in 1927. The designers of the new Main Library to replace Van Wormer library were Harry Hake and Charles H. Kuch. This new building “not only provided room for the university's burgeoning library collections, but its Art Deco architecture was a physical testament to the heritage and power of learning".[2] The Main Library, later named Blegen Library, opened in 1930.

However, by 1963 “the Main Library was woefully inadequate.”[3] The collection was growing, enrollment was increasing, and students did not have enough study space. Extra study carrels, seen below, had to be placed in the hallways of the Main Library to accommodate the overflow of students needing a place to study.

Extra study carrels near the Grand Staircase, Old Main Library

Courtesy Archives & Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati

Thus, in 1967, planning for a larger library began in order to meet the needs of the University. Five different sites were proposed for the location of the library.[4] One proposal suggested was tearing down Nippert Stadium and asking permission to schedule Bearcats’ games at Riverfront Stadium, the former stadium of the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals located in downtown Cincinnati.[5] However, this plan was ultimately rejected, as "UC would have third priority in scheduling at Riverfront after the Reds and the Bengals…'if you have a World Series what do you do?'"[6] The site chosen was an 8.6 acre plot at Woodside Place, between the then Faculty Center and St. Clair Avenue (now Martin Luther King Drive) approved by UC directors in February of 1972.[7] The architects chosen for the project were Glaser and Myers and Associates, and the estimated size and cost for the new library would be 600,000 square feet in area and $30 million. Library plans emphasized flexibility: “The building will be capable of filling long-range needs of data storage and retrieval. The project will be of extensive research value to the entire metropolitan area as well as to UC students and faculty.”[8] In addition, the new library was to “serve as a resource center for the entire campus” and “play a role in developing broad cultural interests throughout the campus community.” The belief was that “Departments of humanities, social sciences and engineering in particular would have strong affinities for the library's services.”[9] In 1978, after much planning, financing, and decision-making, a new Central Library opened, “dedicated to the achievement of learning.”[10] The Central Library was later renamed Langsam Library,

Langsam Library, 1979

Courtesy Archives & Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati

after Walter C. Langsam, historian, and former president of the University of Cincinnati and of Wagner College in New York. During his presidency at UC from 1955 to 1971, the University experienced tremendous growth; the annual operating budget increased from $10 million to $102 million, and the enrollment rose from 14,000 to 35,000 students.[11]

The University Libraries collection currently consists of over four million volumes. The libraries “support University of Cincinnati's undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs and includes the Walter C. Langsam Library, the Archives and Rare Books Library, the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library and eight college and department libraries serving applied science, architecture, art, biology, chemistry, classics, design, education, engineering, geology, health sciences, mathematics, music, physics, and planning.”[12] Additional libraries at the University are the Blue Ash College Library, Clermont College Library, and Robert S. Marx Law Library. University Libraries houses multiple notable collections, such as rare items in the Archives and Rare Books library and “the world's most comprehensive library for advanced research in Classics.”[13] Two such rare items are clay tablets from the Assyrian era and an ancient Hebrew scroll of the book of Esther, captured in this Cincinnati Post article on the Archives and Rare Books Library from 1940.[14]

Courtesy Archives & Rare Books Library,

University of Cincinnati

University Libraries is also affiliated with other organizations, such as the Cincinnati Art Museum Mary R. Schiff Library and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Pratt Library.[15]

The varied and prestigious collection of the University Libraries would not have been possible without multiple financial contributions, most notably a donation establishing the Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund and an endowment from Louise Taft Semple. In 1930, Annie Sinton Taft, donated $2 million in honor of her husband, Charles Phelps Taft, to create Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund, in order to "assist, maintain, and endow the study and teaching of the 'humanities' in the College of Liberal Arts and the Graduate School of the University; namely, the Departments of Classics, Economics, English, German, History, Mathematics, Philosophy, and Romance Languages."[16] From 1931 to 1961, this Fund "supported in whole or in part the publication of eighty books, including the results of the archaeological expeditions to Troy sponsored by the University through its Department of Classics under the direction of Professors William T. Semple and Carl Blegen," and spent $650,000 for the “enrichment” of the Main Library.[17] Similarly, the contributions of Louise Taft Semple, the wife of the former university professor William Semple, have greatly aided the classics department and library over the years.

What is the future of University Libraries? University Archivist Kevin Grace argues "most scholars agree that the heart of a university is its library. Among the stacks, the faculty finds inspiration, and the students sort out the material poured upon them in class. To trace the future of the university, then, scrutinize its library.”[18] University libraries, in recent years, had some difficulty adjusting to modernity, as "libraries have been wrenched through an evolutionary stage,” Grace said. “But the University of Cincinnati libraries are adapting with typical style. They're not discarding books, but creating a learning environment that produces books, or microfilm, or computers, or even cuneiform tables as the scholar may require.”[19] The University Libraries' card catalog wasn't completely replaced by an electronic catalog until the 1990s, but "if it appears that libraries were slow to warm up to computers, remember that for all the rhetoric about rapid advances in technology, computers took a long time to catch up to the libraries.”[20] It was during this time that the University joined OhioLINK, the state-wide network of libraries that connected the electronic catalogs of all the university libraries in the state. This gave students access to four times as many volumes than it had just at UC libraries. Today, students also have access to even more volumes from all across the U.S. through the Interlibrary Loan program. In the 2010-2011 academic year, there were 11,488,432 library catalog hits, 33,341 items borrowed through OhioLINK, and 6,028 volumes borrowed through Interlibrary Loan. University Libraries loaned 54,804 to other colleges and universities through OhioLINK and Interlibrary Loan this past year, reflective of the university's growing prestige.[21]

One recent effort to modernize the library was the addition of Langsam's 24-hour computer lab with one-hundred computers, to make the library more student-user friendly, despite students’ hectic schedules: "With so many distractions at home, such as TV, it's more beneficial to go to the library to focus and study…Now that the library is scheduled to be open 24 hours, students have the access they need to study and do schoolwork around their schedules.”[22] This would not have been possible without the work of former UC President Nancy L. Zimpher. She implemented her UC|21 plan, "which is about defining the new urban research university of the twenty-first century.”[23] Because of this plan, the campus is almost entirely wireless, and a 24-hour computer lab was added at the Steger Student Life Center in 2005.[24] It was decided in 2007 that the fifth floor of Langsam library would be renovated to create a 24-hour computer lab and study space to benefit students, which later replaced the 24-hour computer lab in the Steger Student Life Center. It was projected to cost $321,000 and occupy an 11,000 square foot space. University Libraries continues to adjust to the information age to meet the needs of the students and faculty, and is still a vital part of this research university.

Endnotes

1. Don Heinrich Tolzmann, “The History of University Libraries 1895-2005: Published in Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of Blegen Library 1930-2005,” Reissued from Source (2005).

2. Kevin Grace and Greg Hand, The University of Cincinnati, Montgomery, AL: Community Publications, Inc., 1995, 107.

3. “Blegen Library at 75 Years: 1930-2005 - Celebrating a heritage of Books and Learning,” 2005, Archives & Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati, (accessed October 5, 2011), http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/archives/exhibits2/blegennew/BLEGEN~1_files/frame.htm.

4. "Program for the Renovation of the Existing Main Library at the University of Cincinnati," University of Cincinnati, September 1, 1977, Archives and Rare Books.

5. Bob Fresco, "Library May Replace UC's Nippert Stadium," Cincinnati Enquirer, January 22, 1972.

6. Ibid.

7. "UC Directors OK Location for $30 Million Library," Cincinnati Enquirer, February 2, 2009.

8. “Library,” news release, UC Public Information Office, January 14, 1972, Archives and Rare Books, University of Cincinnati.

9. “New Library,” news release, UC Public Information Office, January 21, 1972, Archives and Rare Books, University of Cincinnati.

10. "A New Library Building," April 24, 1974, Archives and Rare Books, University of Cincinnati.

11. “Dr. Walter Langsam, Former College Head,” The New York Times, August 15, 1985, 2011.

12. “Welcome to the Information Section,” University of Cincinnati Libraries, (accessed October 30, 2011), http://libraries.uc.edu/information/about/index.html.

13. “Department of Classics,” 2009, University of Cincinnati, (accessed October 31, 2011), http://classics.uc.edu.

14. Dick Williams, “Famed Poisoner Represented in U.C. Collection,” Cincinnati Post, November 27, 1940, Archives and Rare Books, University of Cincinnati.

15. "UC Libraries and affiliates,” University of Cincinnati Libraries, (accessed October 30, 2011), http://libraries.uc.edu/information/about/uclibs.html.

16. Reginald C. McGrane, The University of Cincinnati: A Success Story in Urban Higher Education, New York, NY: University of Cincinnati, 1963, 271.

17. Ibid.

18. Grace and Hand, 225.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., 223.

21. “UC Libraries Guide and Facts,” University of Cincinnati Libraries, (accessed October 30, 2011), http://libraries.uc.edu/information/about/guide11.pdf.

22. Kelly Flaherty, “UC campus changes benefit students: Library hour changes first step toward becoming 24/7 campus.” The News Record, May 6, 2007.

23. Natalie Foxworthy, “Zimpher discusses past year, UC's future,” The News Record, June 20, 2005.

24. Mike McQueary, "Library to create 24-hour study space: Langsam getting 100 computers, all-night access to one wing," The News Record, April 27, 2007.

All images Courtesy Archives & Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati.