Printed May 1, 1936
September, 1937 is the expected date of the opening of the University’s new $370,000 library building. Plans for it are now almost complete, and work will start about September. The site will be between President Zimmerman’s home and the stadium building.
An idea of the new building might be gained by comparing its cost with that of the new Administration building, which cost $250,000.
The new building will have a seating capacity of 850 compared to the present capacity of 150. There will be seven floors of book stacks accommodating 250,000 books compared with three floors of stacks in the present library. To facilitate the handling of the books, there will be stack elevators and automatic elevators and automatic book lifters.
The building will be divided into several sound proofed sections or rooms, for different purposes. There will be a browsing room furnished with deep chairs to make reading a pleasant pastime. Reserved books, magazines, and reference books will each be in individual rooms. The Coronado room will contain all the material on New Mexico that the library and the history department can gather. The Spanish room will contain all the Spanish materials and will be furnished Spanish style. There will be a special roof for newspapers. Efforts are being made now to obtain files of all New Mexico papers for that room.
Other rooms will be designed for seminars, maps, book binding, rare books, and special book collections.
After completion of the new building, the present library will be used by the college of Fine Arts.
