A university library is or should be the geographic and spiritual heart of the
cultural life of the university that's what our fourth university president
Allen Ballentine said and the river campus libraries is no exception
the libraries serve as the intellectual foundation and crossroads of learning
and research at the University of Rochester. Rush Rhees library is the
architectural masterpiece of the campus there's always something wonderful to
see in this building whether it's the grill work the wood detailing the
paneling or the columns it's clearly the iconic image for the University.
Rush Rhees library is named for our third president Rush Rhees who served from
1900 to 1935 he didn't originally want the building to be named for himself the
story is that there was literally a stonemason with a chisel waiting for the
decision as to what the building would be named and as soon as the Board of
Trustees made its decision he started carving the groundbreaking
was in 1927 and they opened the whole campus in 1930 when the building first
opened in 1930 they knew that it was going to have to be added to so there
were always plans for there to be an addition by 1960 or so we actually
started to have a space crunch and it was decided that we had to start
planning for an addition the planning for it took a number of years and we
didn't actually dedicate it until 1970 the new portion of the building wraps
around the old portion in a u-shape and goes underground into levels a and B we
have proximately 3.5 million volumes print volumes and a lot of digital
resources we're really strong in 19th century materials so we have great large
collection we maintain I think some of the most
interesting items in the collection are in some of our most notable materials
the first book that was purchased for the university was a Bible and it was
used with a chapel the first book that was purchased for the library was a book
on mechanics and mechanical engineering one of our first major manuscript
collections were the papers of Lewis Henry Morgan who is often considered the
father of American anthropology we have a really strong collection of susan b
anthony papers susan b anthony is renowned in this region really fighting
for the vote for females and also to gain entrance or women into the
University of Rochester also Frederick Douglass who was a 19th century
abolitionist positioned in the Rochester area we have a lot of his papers in some
of his North Star which was a newspaper of that era we have a letter which
Abraham Lincoln wrote on the day he was assassinated it may have been one of the
last pieces of paper that he wrote upon and he was writing to William Henry
Seward another thing that we have which should be of great pride to the
University of Rochester students is the manuscript of the Pledge of Allegiance
which was composed by one of our students Francis Bellamy so we've always
been seen as the center of knowledge and that will not change what will change is
that we more and more become a center of knowledge creation.
Some of our spaces, there'll be a programmatic emphasis to them when you think about how digital
technology's changed our lives I don't think I've seen another institution that
integrates digital tools into the curriculum like
we do at University of Rochester we are creating a new way for them to be
critical thinkers they're using digital tools to extend their critical thinking
and filter information and analyze it in new ways and I think that those skills
will be critical in the future we have other spaces that are for other
purposes like the Gleason library which is a collaborative space that in many
ways the students designed by indicating the types of learning spaces that they
wanted one of the areas that were in the process of developing is called Izone
it's imagination ideas innovation and it is around developing students skills
after they leave the university they want to be able to create the future for
themselves and solve the problems of the world a library is a fantastic place for
this kind of thing because we provide the scholarly resources to do that and
the support to do that kind of thing whether you are entering the university
as a first year student exploring a fresh research possibility or delving
further into a familiar subject area the libraries are dedicated to enhancing
your scholarly experience we believe in the university's motto meliora and we
look forward to collaborating with you to make your Rochester experience
Ever Better.