History

Former Names: Cornell Library, Rose Memorial Library

Constructed: 1938-1939

Rose Memorial Library was built by funds donated by Lenox S. Rose and replaced the Cornell Library. When the Rose Memorial Library first opened, it contained four large reading rooms, six floors of book stacks, music and art rooms, and specialized facilities. In 1943-1944 it contained research and social rooms. In 1957-1958 the library had a photographic lab, fine arts room, seminar and typing rooms, and contained the university book store. By 1978 the building housed reading and reference rooms, a selective depository for federal documents, and comprehensive depositories for documents from the State government, the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the United Nations headquarters in NY. In 1981-1983 it contained stacks, graduate study rooms, individual study carrels, and computer terminals connecting bibliographic data bases and indexing services. In 1982, the library underwent a $2.2 million renovation and the $4.4 million Learning Center was added. Today the library contains nearly a half million volumes, and more than 2,000 periodicals – plus, microforms, manuscripts, recordings and other source material.

Credits

Composed by Anthony D. Rogers, Courtesy of the Drew University Archives.