NCSU Libraries Focus Online
Volume 27 number 2 - Winter 2007
Breaking the Rules: Alumni Remember the Library
By Anna Dahlstein, External Relations and Friends of the Library
After retiring as director of the D. H. Hill Library in 1987,
I. T. Littleton wrote An Informal History, tracing the
history of libraries at NC State, from the modest reading room
on the third floor of Main Building (now Holladay Hall) in the
late 1800s to the emergence of a nationally ranked research library.
In the University Archives of the Special Collections Research
Center, there are many cubic feet of primary records documenting
the institutional growth and evolution of the NCSU Libraries.
However, to gain another, more personal dimension to this history,
the Libraries is asking alumni, former librarians, and others to
contribute their recollections from this hub of the campus. From
the stories that have been submitted so far, it is evident that
students not only appreciated the Libraries’ resources or
quiet study environment, but also found the time to flirt in the
bookstacks and gaze at the view out the window. Here is a
sampling of anecdotes and reflections; to read more or contribute
a story of your own, please visit the “Library Memories” Web
site at www.lib.ncsu.edu/memories/. The Web site includes links
to library photographs included among the digitized selections
from the University Archives Photograph Collection.
Student Antics
I recall one cold Sunday evening the night before fall exams began;
I arrived to a packed library. It took me quite a while to find
a space to study. After I sat down to study, it didn’t take
me long to discover why that space was available--there was a noisy
copy machine just a few feet away. To no avail, I tried blocking
out the noise. Then, I got an idea to solve this problem. When
no one was looking I took out a piece of paper and in large letters
wrote, “Out of Order” and then placed it on the copier.
This solved the noise issue, although I did feel very guilty as
other students approached the copier one at a time only to be disappointed.
--Sheila Jarrett Beal, Class of 1989
Living in a frat house made the library a perfect place for peace
and quiet, and of course studying. One Sunday evening my girlfriend
and I were on one of the upper floors, her doing research and me
studying for an exam. It was close to closing time, so we decided
to head down. She never liked elevators, so after the doors closed
and we started descending, I started jumping up and down, making
the elevator shake and rock. She panicked and started yelling stop,
when suddenly the elevator did exactly that--between floors.
--Bradly Armand Merlie, Class of 1981
Gaining Privileges to the Stacks
Most undergraduate students did not have access to the stacks.
Graduate students did, but from what I can recall, undergraduates
had to maintain a certain grade point average and apply for a special
access pass. I was a good student, so after my first semester,
I was able to gain access to the stacks. Everyone else had to write
out requests for certain titles, turn them in, and wait for a library
staff member to bring them out. There was, of course, no online
catalog—you looked up resources in the card catalog.
--Jane Warren, Class of 1968
A new world was opened to me when I was invited to join the Engineering
Honors Program in my Junior year. One of the real perks of that
program was a “stack pass” that allowed Honors students
the same access to the library stacks as graduate students. This
meant that we could finally do serious research or just serious
browsing through that treasure trove of books and periodicals anytime
we wished, and I thoroughly enjoyed this privilege. . . . I remember
being in the D. H. Hill stacks once when there was a power failure.
It was no big problem because I could still sit by the window and
read amidst that huge storehouse of print. Today when the lights
go out knowledge dies with it!
--James F. Marchman III, Class of 1964; Ph.D
1969
Daydreaming and Learning
I worked in the library in ‘98. I worked a grand total of
about 6 hours a week. I would get my cart of books to shelve, then
head up to the ninth floor. I would leave the cart sitting there
and just go to the window and look out at the view. Slack, yes,
but what is to be expected from a freshman? I love that view. I
think about it sometimes and get sad because I don’t attend
school there anymore. . . . When I was tired between classes I
would go to the first floor, find an empty chair and just get blissful
sleep!
--Erik Kennelly, Class of 2001
I remember . . . talking to my Dad once about the view from the
top floors, how it was amazing to me that you could see out over
all the trees that I so often drove under. And there are oak trees
in Raleigh, of course, and I thought it reminded me of the world
I had read about in The Hobbit by
JRR Tolkien. There was one summer when I was on campus taking a
class or two and that was the summer that research first became
interesting to me. And I mean suddenly every subject under the
sun was incredibly fascinating (tree rings, architecture, photography,
literature, on and on). At some point I began to spend more time
in the library with a new desire to just know more, about almost
anything.”
--William Harrison Griffin Jr., Class of 2000
|
