A Look Back: The History of University of Cincinnati Libraries

Following is Part II in a three-part series. You may read Part I online at www.libraries.uc.edu/source/volthree/uclibraries.html

(Part II) Foundational Years 1930-1978

In June 1930, the University’s new Main Library opened. Built at a cost of $892,000, it was designed by Harry Hake and Charles H. Kuch. The project started in 1927 when the Board of Directors appointed a library planning committee. Architectural plans were presented to the public in 1928. The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote of the new plans, “The dignified simplicity and spaciousness of the new library are apparent. It is expected to take its place among the most beautiful buildings in Cincinnati.”

The new library building was located south of the old Van Wormer Library and lay directly on the axis of the main entrance to campus continuing the line of buildings parallel with and facing Clifton Avenue. The building stood seven stories, with the main entrance on the fourth level with a three-story façade.

The simplicity of the building’s exterior was broken up with rich, symbolic sculpture. On the building’s central section were two inscriptions: one from Sir Francis Bacon’s “Essay on Education”:“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider,” and a second from John Milton’s Areopagitica: “For books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potencie on life in them to be as active as he whose progeny they are.”

Also on the building’s façade were various panels depicting outstanding contributors to civilization, including: Moses, Confucius, Euclid, Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, Franklin, Gutenberg, and many others. A center panel read: “The University Library is dedicated to the Advancement of Learning.” On either side of the entrance were inscribed some of the major fields covered by the library: “Philosophy,” “Science,” “Literature,” “Religion,” “History,” and “Politics.”

Inside, the new library provided space for roughly 600,000 volumes, 1,000 readers, and 52 faculty studies. It was built for comfort, efficiency, and style, and for its time, contained state-of-the art technology such as pneumatic tubes that carried books from the stacks to the Circulation Desk on a different level.

Level four contained the Rental Library of fiction, mysteries, and biographies. In this room was a space furnished with large, leather chairs around a club table. Here, one could recline and browse library materials. Also located on the fourth floor was the Tea Room, which hosted special-occasion teas, and during Edward Henry’s administration, daily teas for the staff’s break. Silver tea urns with sugar/creamer sets and good china on lace clothes were standard features of these teas.

Two special rooms on the fourth floor were the Stephen Foster and the Elliston Poetry Room. In 1935, the Foster Collection was presented through the generosity of Josiah Kirby Lilly, a retired wholesale druggist. The room was decorated with murals of Foster’s Cincinnati days, and the marble above the entrance was graced with the artwork of Robert P. Tristram Coffin, one-time Elliston Poet. About the Elliston Poetry Room, established in 1951, German author Horst Bienek wrote “The shelves are filled to the ceiling with books of poetry from precious editions of The Seafarer or Beowulf, or Longfellow, and Emily Dickinson, to the most recent publication of still unknown authors and groups—and spread out on the tables, poetry magazines from all countries…down to mimeographed manuscripts of the currently newest avant-garde.”

On the fifth floor were the Circulation and Reference Reading Rooms. The doors to this area were bronze with plate-glass grills containing printers’ devices. Opposite Circulation was the Reference Reading Room containing heavy, oak reading tables. At the south end of the room was the Rare Book Room, which contained about 5,000 volumes. The three chandeliers in the Reference Reading Room bore various inscriptions meant to inspire. On the first chandelier was the Hebrew inscription of Proverbs 3:13: “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding.” The second chandelier bore the Latin inscription from Terrence: “Nothing human do I consider alien to myself.” On the third chandelier, the Greek inscription by Democritus read: “Do not aim at knowing everything.” At the entrance to the Reference Reading Room was the reference librarian’s alcove. According to Kornel Huvos, reference librarian from 1959-61, there was only one librarian on duty and this person spent full time at the desk. Fortunately, the five catalogers also took turns staffing the Reference Desk so that the reference librarian only had to work one evening a week.

At its opening in 1930, UC’s Libraries held a total of 197,880 volumes. The collections steadily grew: 320,741 volumes in 1942; 649,747 in 1951; and 1,351,390 in 1978. The heads of the college and departmental libraries were responsible for collection development. In the Main Library, orders from faculty were sent directly to the head of the Acquisition Department. Gradually, a more structured approach to collections developed. In the late 1960s, two bibliographers were assigned to collect for the social sciences and humanities. Beginning in the 1970s, the reference/bibliographer system of subject specialists was established; and in 1976, an assistance director for collections was appointed. The book-periodical budget increased from $20,603 in 1930 to $737,652 in 1978.

During this period, several important endowments and collections contributed to the growth of UC’s Libraries. Especially important for the collection were the Taft Funds. In 1930, the University received two million dollars from Mrs. Phelps Taft for the establishment of the Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund. The income of the Fund was 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. Also in 1930, Carl T. Blegen, professor of classical archeology, began collecting works on ancient Greek authors, history, and archeology.

In 1935, Edwin Zeydel, chairman of the German Department, obtained for the library the German-Americana Collection of H.H. Fick, supervisor of the Cincinnati Public Schools German Department and a well-known German-American author.

After Edward Henry retired as director in 1950, Wyman Parker, former director of Kenyon College Library and member of General McArthur’s staff during World War II, succeeded him. In 1956, Arthur I. Hamlin succeeded Mr. Parker and served as director until 1968. Bruce Kaufman, who had been assistant director, served as acting director from 1965 to 1970, and then as director from 1970 to 1973. Hal B. Schell, who served as director until 1980, succeeded Mr. Kaufman.

In addition to the director, other librarians on duty in 1930 were the assistant librarian, the heads of cataloging, circulation, acquisitions, reference, and the following college and departmental libraries: applied art, engineering and commerce, law, medicine, nursing and health, and chemistry. There were 10 other departmental libraries, including the John Miller Burnam Library of Classics and Romance Philology, the YMCA Night Law School Library, and eight other unspecified branches.

The years in the Main library saw many changes in the library system. In 1960, the McBee card system of circulation was introduced. In 1963, the first coin-operated photocopy machine was placed in the library. In 1974, the Chemistry-Biology Library became the first to introduce computerized bibliographic searching.

New departments, services, and personnel were also introduced during this time. By 1940, there were heads of Public Services, Periodicals, Reserves, and the Graduate Reserve Room. In 1956, the Geology-Geography Library moved from the Main Library to Old Tech. By 1960, there was a head of Departmental Libraries and Interlibrary Loan. By the 1970s, divisional assistant director positions were established, reflecting the evolution from departmental organization to divisional organization into public and technical services. This growth and development translated into an increasing space shortage for both people and library collections and resulted in the relocation of a number of library offices and the development of an off-campus storage facility.

There were several problems with having a closed-stack system, one of which came to light in the summer of 1968 when a librarian put out a fire set in the library stacks. Thereafter, locks were placed on the gates to the stacks and a faculty committee patrolled the area day and night for several months to prevent any further occurrences. Another building problem was that the windows adjacent to the stacks on the back wall could be opened and books thrown out. This resulted in several book thefts, including a full set of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Horst Bienek wrote of an unusual custom: “And only once a year, on Valentine’s Day, does it happen that they [students] throw books out the windows (from high-spiritedness, from hate, or just because it’s tradition?), where they are collected again the next morning by distraught librarians.”

Arthur Hamlin commented on another problem of the building in 1963 when he observed that although the building had many fine points, it had unfortunately been “designed to absorb heat in the summer and cold in the winter. Some of our reading rooms are natural ovens with huge, unshaded window areas but virtually no natural ventilation.” He estimated that staff efficiency fell 20% during the summer months due to the heat. In 1963, air conditioning was suggested, but investigations demonstrated that central air in such a structure was impossible; therefore, in 1969 window units were installed. Unfortunately, certain areas could not be air-conditioned. In the book stacks, the temperature often reached 100 degrees in the summer. In the winter, the temperature in the Reference Room was known to have fallen to 40 degrees.

It became apparent that a new library was necessary at the University. In 1967, a planning committee completed a report that recommended, first, the building of a new central library to serve principally the humanities and the social sciences, and second, the eventual building of a science library. The opening of the new Central Library (now known as the Walter C. Langsam Library) in 1978 brings to a close the second period of the UC Library history.

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