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The Daily OrangeCake, math books make for a unique 100th birthday celebration
By Ronna Weyland
Posted: 10/5/07, 12:15 AM EST Section: News
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The Carnegie Library celebrated its 100th anniversary Thursday during a two-hour birthday party featuring speakers, cake, an array of rare mathematics books and historic photographs on display and discussion on the future of the library.
"I salute this magnificent building and I hope, like all of us, it will eventually reach its full potential," said David Stam, university librarian emeritus, during his speech.
Stam was one of three speakers at the event held in the library's second-floor reading room. He spoke briefly on the history of the building and how Andrew Carnegie donated $150,000 to help build the university library.
The library received the Von Ranke collection from the old library in September 1907, Stam said. This event marked the official opening of Carnegie.
Dean of libraries Suzanne Thorin spoke to attendees about future plans for renovations of the Carnegie Library as well as E.S. Bird Library.
"I don't want to let the renovation plans to go away on this side of campus while I work on renovations at the Bird," said Thorin, explaining plans for renovations at both libraries.
She said the focus is renovating Bird first.
"This is an exciting time for libraries," Thorin said. "Everything has changed in the past 10 to 15 years, and this is mainly due to technology."
Thorin revealed plans for upcoming changes to the Syracuse University libraries.
"The Bird Library needs to update its functionality to meet the needs of today's students and become a nexus for research, learning and collaboration," she said.
Planned changes at Bird include reconstruction of the bridge leading to and from campus, state-of-the-art classrooms, exhibition cases to document the history of recorded sound and other collections, a new seminar room for special collections hands-on classes, a research reading room and a learning commons on the first and second floors.
Thorin said the strategic direction in which the library is moving includes supporting current academic needs and research practices, making new connections across campus and building expertise in copyright and the study of Arabic and Spanish languages.
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