News

Pro-Palestine Encampment Represents First Major Test for Harvard President Alan Garber

News

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Condemns Antisemitism at U.S. Colleges Amid Encampment at Harvard

News

‘A Joke’: Nikole Hannah-Jones Says Harvard Should Spend More on Legacy of Slavery Initiative

News

Massachusetts ACLU Demands Harvard Reinstate PSC in Letter

News

LIVE UPDATES: Pro-Palestine Protesters Begin Encampment in Harvard Yard

FRESHMAN LIBRARY TO BE MOVED TO ROOM IN UNION

ADMINISTRATION WILL CONTINUE UNDER WIDENER STAFF

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The present Freshman Library Building, ending its usefulness this year, will be torn down or removed from its site in front of Standish Hall, according to Delmar Leighton '19, Dean of Freshmen. The building, originally more convenient to first-year students than the libraries of the yard, will give place this summer to an open triangle of grass and shrubbery. 2500 or more books essential for Freshman History and English studies will probably be placed in what is now a private dining room on the second floor of the Union, where the volumes will be used for study and kept entirely separate from the general library on the first floor, which will remain intact for pleasure reading.

Begun in January, 1927, as a history library for Freshmen, the books were kept in the present McKinlock Hall Dining Room, the students in McKinlock going to Gore Hall for their meals. In September of that year, the University acquired the frame tenement house which stood at 42 Holyoke Street, on the site of the present Master's Residence of Lowell House, and the rapidly growing library was moved there. At this period the greater part of the English books were added by gifts from Professor C. N. Greenough '98.

On preparing the ground for the erection of Lowell House in the summer of 1929, the two stories of the building were separated from the cellar and moved bodily to their present position. No foundations were built for the house in its new site, it being placed on brick piles, and at first fears were felt for its stability. The room partitions were knocked out and each floor was converted into a single room. It was furnished with tables and chairs from the former Memorial Hall Dining Room.

The library has been under the con- trol of Widener Library officials, though the majority of the history books come from the History Reading Room in Boylston Hall. These books will be under the same direction in the fall, but the library for recreational reading will be, as heretofore, in the charge of the Harvard Union Governing Board

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags