Enduring Legacy: A History of the University at Albany Libraries and Their Collections
The University at Albany's library system has been integral to its academic mission since the institution's early days. This article explores the rich history and diverse collections of the University Libraries, tracing their evolution from humble beginnings to their current status as a leading research resource.
Early Foundations and Growth
The connection between library resources and philanthropic support at the University at Albany can be traced back to the State Normal School at Albany, the institution's forerunner, founded in December 1844. The Normal School's transformation into a four-year liberal arts college for teachers in 1906 highlighted the need for a more extensive library facility.
Mary Cobb (1916-1956), the New York State Normal College's first professionally trained librarian, spearheaded this development. Under her guidance, the library's collection expanded significantly, growing from fewer than 4,000 volumes to over 53,000. In 1933, the library relocated from a single room in Draper Hall, located on the University's downtown campus, to the first floor of Hawley Hall, situated next door, marking a significant step in its growth.
Expansion and Transformation
A period of rapid expansion began in 1962 when the College became one of the four State University of New York University Centers. This transition from a liberal arts college to a university resulted in rapid increases in faculty, student population, and library collections, necessitating a larger facility to accommodate the University's growing needs. The Hawley Library was closed in 1966 during the construction of the Edward Durell Stone-designed uptown campus, and the collections were moved to the University Library on the academic podium of the Uptown Campus. In November 1968, the University Library was officially dedicated.
The University Libraries reached a significant milestone in 1982 with the acquisition of their one-millionth volume, signifying their continued development as a major research institution. The downtown campus library was renamed the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Graduate Library for Public Affairs and Policy in 1988.
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Modernization and Specialization
The University Library had outgrown its allocated space after more than four decades of consistent growth and development, prompting the campus to begin planning a new facility in the early 1990s. The Science Library opened on the uptown campus in September 1999 to house the Science Library, the M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, and the Library Preservation Laboratory. Another significant milestone was reached on April 5, 2001, when Albany's Libraries celebrated the acquisition of their two-millionth volume.
Diverse Collections and Strengths
The Libraries' collections are extensive, with notable strengths in various fields, including psychology, education, biological sciences, criminal justice, business, anthropology (particularly Meso-America), social welfare, and library and information science.
The M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, housed in the Science Library, serves as a repository for over 12,000 cubic feet of manuscript and archive collections, as well as over 75,000 rare and specialized book collections. The University Archives contain records that document the history of the university back to 1844, including yearbooks, student newspapers, departmental records, etc.
Resources Beyond the University
Beyond the University's physical collections, numerous online resources provide access to a wealth of historical information:
- 95 Trivoli Street (near the "Nipper Building," N. Albany Institute of History & Art): The library is open Thursday afternoons from 1 to 4:30 pm.
- Albany Public Library's digital collection: The digital collection on the New York Heritage site contains a small sample of their local history holdings, including thousands of books, photographs, city directories, newspapers, school yearbooks, documents, census records, city council minutes, maps, and more from the full Pruyn Collection.
- Historic house dating back to late 1700s: The house of the Van Rensselaers, a prominent Albany Dutch family.
- HathiTrust: HathiTrust provides long-term preservation and access services to digitized content from a variety of sources and is a digital library of millions of free books, texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software.
- Online Archive of California (OAC): Search across multiple digitized, text-searchable primary source collections.
- Internet History Sourcebooks Project: A collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use, including documents associated with "western civilization" and information on ancient, Byzantine, Islamic, Jewish, Indian, East Asian, and African history.
- Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC): SNAC helps users discover biographical and historical information about persons, families, and organizations that created or are documented in historical resources (primary source documents) and their connections to one another.
- Jesus Alonso-Regalado's Compilation: Use terms that define your topic plus terms that define the type or primary source such as correspondence, letters, personal narratives, diaries, etc.
- Harry Ransom Center: The material from the Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. papers is excellent for those interested in legal history, and the Working Women collection is highly recommended.
- Digital Public Library of America: Provides access to a collection of digitized posters, photographs, manuscripts, moving images, sound recordings, and other historical materials.
- The Newberry: Chicago's independent research library since 1887, specializing in primary historical sources pertaining to the Americas, both North and South, before ca. 1825.
- Princeton University Library: Princeton has digitized parts of its public policy collection and provides access to its digital collections focusing on topics such as activism and social reform, plastics, and broadcasting history.
- University of Michigan: Michigan’s collection is especially strong on women’s movements and gender.
- Wisconsin Historical Association: The Wisconsin Historical Association has the country’s second-largest North American Heritage collection-after the Library of Congress.
- Yale University Library: Yale has lots of online material about Christian missionaries, and some of the Henry Kissinger material is accessible too.
ARL Membership and Commitment to Excellence
Albany's Libraries are members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), ranking them among the largest and most comprehensive research libraries in North America. A team of dedicated librarians and staff provides reference assistance, consultation, instruction, and other services to promote teaching, learning, and scholarship.
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