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The University of Rochester in Rochester, New York has several libraries. According to the American Library Association, the university has some 3,701,241 volumes.

History and architecture
The River Campus is the main campus of the University of Rochester. Twenty-two subject librarians work at the River Campus Libraries. Several libraries are located on the campus.

The library's collection began during the university's earliest days, when the university shared space with the Rochester Theological Seminary at the former United States Hotel on West Main Street in Rochester. The first library purchase was Julius Weisbach's Principles of the Mechanics of Machinery and Engineering. Initially, university professors were assigned to oversee the collection, which was common at the time. Tutor Albert H. Mixer was listed as the University's first Librarian. The library's first card catalog appeared in 1870 and contains handwritten records for 9,560 books; the project was completed by librarian Otis Hall Robinson and his staff. According to the Library, Robinson "invented the rod-in-hole technique to keep the formerly loose cards in order." Sibley Hall, which opened on the Prince Street campus north of University Avenue in 1877, was the university's first separate library building. The building remained in use until 1955. Four sphinx statutes that formerly guarded the door to Sibley Hall were later moved to the entrance of the tunnel between Lattimore Hall and Morey Hall, while four symbolic statues were moved to the lawn south of Rush Rhees Library.

In 1930, the University completed its current River Campus, and the Rush Rhees Library opened on the new campus in the same year. The library was named after Rush Rhees, president of the university from 1900 to 1935, a time when the university transformed from a small college to a large research university. The original 1930 structure faces the Eastman Quadrangle and is designed in the Greek Revival style. The original structure contains the library's "old stacks" and tower. The original designers planned for a future expansion, which occurred in 1969. The additions in 1969 wrapped around the back of the original structure and a portion of the sides, and the architecture is markedly more modern than the first library. The library's original building features stone owls around the tower, above the cornice, and in architectural details such as the handles to the door of the Friedlander Lobby doors. Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom and libraries. The library's tower is 186 feet high and contains the Hopeman Carillon, a carillon which was dedicated on December 9, 1973. The carillon is the largest musical instrument in Rochester and one of only seven carillons in New York. It is comprised of 50 bells, which were cast in bronze by Royal Eijsbouts Bellfoundry of Asten in the Netherlands. The bells cover more than four octaves and and played from a keyboard and pedalboard. They weigh 6,668 pounds. The Hopeman Carillon replaced the original 1930 Hopeman Memorial Chime, a 17-bell instrument donated to the university by the children of Arendt Willem Hopeman in memory of their father, whose firm was the general contractor for the Campus. The original 1930 carillon was cast at the Meneely Bell Foundry in Watervliet, New York and although smaller than the current chime were much heavier; the largest single bell in the Hopeman Memorial Chime weighed 7,800 pounds. Two bells were added to the original 1930 chime in 1956.

The Martin E. Messinger Periodical Reading Room in the library has been the main reading room of the Rhees Library since 1930. It once housed the reference department, but now contains periodicals. The room has wood paneling and a balcony overseeing the Quad. Several quotations are on the walls:
 * PHILOSOPHY WILL ENCOURAGE US TO OBEY GOD CHEERFULLY AND FORTUNE DEFIANTLY…..SENECA
 * I HAVE ENDEAVORED NEITHER TO MOCK NOR TO DENOUNCE MEN’S ACTIONS BUT TO UNDERSTAND THEM….SPINOZA
 * THE WORLD IS A COMEDY TO THOSE THAT THINK – A TRAGEDY TO THOSE THAT FEEL….WALPOLE
 * LET NOT HIM THAT SEEKETH CEASE UNTIL HE FIND – AND WHEN HE FINDETH HE SHALL WONDER….NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
 * IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE CHANCE FAVORS ONLY THE PREPARED MIND…PASTEUR
 * SCIENCE AND ART BELONG TO THE WHOLE WORLD AND BEFORE THEM VANISH THE BARRIERS OF NATIONALITY…GOETHE

The Welles Brown Room interior is a study room and is also used for speakers, receptions and other events.

The Gleason Library includes four group studios equipped with white boards and projection screens, four study cubicles, and various individual study carrels and tables. It is a popular gathering space and has large windows. The Gleason Library also houses a permanent art collection. 

Collections
The Rush Rhees Stacks comprise some three million items and are mostly in the humanities and social sciences. The library's tower is 186 feet high. The library has nearly 42 miles of shelf and stack space. Seven major collections are housed at the Rhees Library:


 * First Floor: The Art and Music Library on the ground floor includes works on art and music. Collections include an estimated 75,000 books on visual arts, art theory, architecture, music and photography, 1,000 music scores, and 2,200 music CDs. The Multimedia Center (MMC), also located on the ground floor, includes multimedia items such as language learning reserve items, films on DVD and videocassette, and items in streaming media, text-to-speech, and Braille. The MMC also contains the Film and Media Studies Collection, a non-circulating research collection.
 * Second Floor: Business and Government Information Library (BGIL) on the second floor includes items relating to business as well as the federal and New York state government. The library opened in 2006 and selects 68.17 percent of federal documents through the Federal Depository Library Program. The library's most notable collection are historical documents of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1960 to 1995. The Newspaper and Microform Centeron the second floor includes a reading area with some 50 print publications for browsing and the library's microform collection. Highlights of the microform collections include Federal Writers' Project slave narratives, Frederick Douglass' papers, the history of photography, history of women, the papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and the papers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1959-1972.  The Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation on the second floor includes an estimated 90,000 volumes. The collection includes incunabula (printed works dating before 1501), modern first editions, prints, maps, photographs, broadsides, and ephemera. The manuscript collection includes some 400 items, including the papers of William Henry Seward, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, George Eastman, Jerre Mangione, and John Gardner.
 * Fourth Floor: Koller-Collins Center for English Studies on the fourth floor is a non-circulating English studies collection. Known prior to 1978 as the Core Collection for Graduate Studies in English, the center is now named for Kathrine Koller and Rowland Collins, professors of English at the university. The collection includes around 10,000 items of British and American literature. The collection's strengths are in Elizabethan drama and reference material for literary studies. The fourth floor also houses the non-circulating Rossell Hope Robbins Library, a medieval studies collection with an estimated 20,000 volumes. Highlights of the Robbins Library include the Patrologia Latina, the Rolls of Parliament, and the 253-volume Rolls Series. The collection began with a donation by Middle English scholar Rossell Hope Robbins (1912-1990) and his wife Helen Ann Mins Robbins. According to the Library, the collection includes "comprehensive holdings in all aspects of Middle English literature, as well as significant holdings in Old English, Anglo-Norman, and medieval French literature; medieval history, art, philosophy, theology, and stained glass; manuscript studies; witchcraft; and Arthurian studies." The collection organizes the Camelot Project, a project formed in 1995 to make Arthurian texts, images, and other works available in electronic form. The collection's Robin Hood Project similarly aims to digitize Robin Hood and other outlaw stories.


 * Carlson Science & Engineering Library. Named in honor of Chester Floyd Carlson, the inventor of electrophotography.
 * Gleason Library.

Sibley Music Library
The Sibley Music Library of the Eastman School of Music was founded in 1904 by Hiram Watson Sibley, the son of Hiram Sibley. It predates the Eastman School of Music, which opened in September 1921. Initially the Music Library was designed as a community music library for the city of Rochester and was housed at the university's Sibley Hall (named in honor of the elder Sibley, who donated the money for its construction). The Music Library moved to the Eastman School conservatory building when it opened in January 1922, and at the time its collections included around 2,400 books and 6,200 scores.

Three long-serving librarians oversaw the Music Library: Barbara Duncan from 1922 to 1947, Ruth T. Watanabe from 1947 to 1984, and Mary Wallace Davidson from 1984 to 1999. Duncan had been curator of the Allen B. Brown music collection at the Boston Public Library from 1909 until her move to the Eastman School. The collection dramatically increased during Duncan's tenure, from some 8,600 volumes in 1922 to almost 55,000 volumes at Duncan's retirement. Under Duncan, the library purchased a significant number of antiquarian books and scores from Europe, forming the core of what later became the Ruth T. Watanabe Special Collections. In 1937, the Library constructed the first purpose-build building in the United States intended for use solely as a music library. The building included four levels of closed stacks and two floors with reading rooms, and office and seminar space and is today known as the Old Sibley Library. The Old Sibley Library now is used as a multipurpose classroom (first floor) and for department offices (second floor). 

Duncan's successor, Ruth T. Watanabe, also dramatically expanded the Music Library's collection. From 1947 to 1962, the collection more than doubled, reaching near 120,000 volumes; at Watanabe's retirement in 1984, the Library's collection of books and score had again doubled. Watanabe's tenure, acquisitions focused on more recent publications. The library's expanding collection led to the construction of a new music building, built under Mary Wallace Davidson. The current Sibley Music Library building was dedicated in 1989 and comprises an estimate 45,000 square feet on the second, third, and fourth floors of Eastman Place across Gibbs Street from the Eastman School.

Edward G. Miner Library
The Edward G. Miner Library is the health sciences library of the University of Rochester. It serves the University of Rochester Medical Center and is on the Medical Center campus, has its own campus separate from the other Rochester campuses. The Medical Center includes the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, the School of Nursing, the Eastman Dental Center, Strong Memorial Hospital, and the University Medical Faculty Group. The library is located at 601 Elmwood Avenue. Its collections comprise an estimated 40,000 volumes, including books, journals, and theses.

The library is named after Edward Griffith Miner (1863-1955), a businessman affiliated with Pfaudler for 48 years and a University of Rochester trustee for 40 years. After the medical school opened in 1925, Miner became friends with George Washington Corner (1889-1981), the chair of the Department of Anatomy. Miner took increase interest in the new Medical Library and in April 1927 donated 41 titles on yellow fever. Miner would continue to make donations to tje libraries until his death in 1955. The library was named in his honor in December 1952.

Charlotte Whitney Allen Library
The Charlotte Whitney Allen Library is the library of Memorial Art Gallery, the University of Rochester's art museum.