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The Daily OrangeCarnegie Library to celebrate 100th birthday
By Justin Perrelli
Posted: 10/3/07, 11:40 PM EST Section: News
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The SU libraries and math department will host Carnegie Library's 100-year anniversary today from 2-4 p.m. in the second-floor Reading Room. All are invited.
The event will begin with a celebratory cake in honor of the building's birthday and will close with a guided tour displaying rare math books and historical photos of the building.
Professor emeritus of math Phil Church, University Librarian emeritus David Stam and Dean of Libraries Suzanne Thorin will each speak at the event.
"The most interesting part of my speech will be about Pi Mu Epsilon," Church said. "About 100 years ago, Professor Edward Drake Roe formed an undergraduate math club called Pi Mu Epsilon. The club that started right here now has 326 chapters - including one in every state and Washington D.C."
Stam will talk about the library's history.
"One of the curious things about Carnegie is it has never been dedicated; it's never happened for some funny reasons, I'll talk about those," Stam said. "I'll talk about the fate of the library over the years and fill it in with a few anecdotes. I'll make it relevant to students."
And appropriately, Thorin will lay out her plans for Carnegie's future.
"I'll talk about our plans for renovating the Bird Library and eventually the Carnegie Library," Thorin said. "I'll talk about getting ever closer to the needs of students, and how they live their lives, and how they study, and how they congregate. The library is trying to be the very best we can to support learning."
On display throughout the library will be rare math books and historical photographs of Carnegie.
"The tour will show how Carnegie was back then," said Mary O'Brien, assistant university archivist.
She said rare editions proclaiming breakthrough theories, both in English and other languages, will be pulled out of the stacks.
"The photographs that will be shown are some of the ones of Carnegie being built, some of the original photographs from inside and some gorgeous shots of the reading room," O'Brien said.
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