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Showing posts from August 11, 2013

Welcome Back

As the University Libraries welcome students and faculty back to the campus and the summer recess comes to a close, it is perhaps appropriate to reflect on the Libraries’ historic and current place in serving our community. As the repository of the University’s archives, we offer a unique resource in assessing our university’s tradition and relationship to its many constituencies, and are a major resource for exploring the evolution of higher education for women from our founding in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, as I was just discussing with a colleague walking back from the Chancellor’s State of the Campus address, the old Forney Building that served as the first library building on campus was built through the generosity of Andrew Carnegie at the urging of Normal School founder and first president Charles Duncan McIver. Carnegie is best known for building public libraries, but he was willing to support libraries for colleges offering practical education, and McIver convinced h