Uris Library: A Historical Cornerstone of Cornell University
Uris Library stands as a testament to Cornell University's commitment to knowledge and its rich history. Located on the southwest corner of the Arts Quad, overlooking Libe Slope, it is the oldest library building on the Cornell campus. More than just a repository of books, Uris Library embodies the vision of Cornell's founders and the enduring legacy of its benefactors.
Architectural Marvel and Historical Significance
The University Library building, which would later be renamed Uris Library, officially opened its doors on October 7, 1891-twenty-three years to the day after Cornell University first held classes. William Henry Miller, Cornell’s first architecture student, designed the library in the Richardsonian-Romanesque style. Miller, remembered for his many buildings on campus and portrait, which hangs in the Uris Library lobby, also designed Barnes Hall, Stimson Hall, Boardman Hall, and Risley Hall, two fraternities, the A. D. White House, the Central Avenue Bridge, and Eddy Gate.
Miller designed the library as a cross-shaped structure-a “cruciform basilica” that features a large reading room-a “nave”-with natural lighting from 29 windows and 20 clerestory windows. Built in an "Americanized" or Richardsonian-Romanesque style, the library is a cross-shaped structure with arcades of arches and squared windows.
Originally called the University Library, Uris Library garnered national acclaim for its combination of beauty and utility. Andrew Dickson White called the building "a marvel of good planning, in which fitness is wedded to beauty" and "the best academic library built." Miller considered the library his masterpiece.
A. D. White Library: A Library Within a Library
Uris Library also houses the A. D. White Library, "a library within a library," named after the university's first president, Andrew Dickson White. White had advocated for the construction of the building now known as Uris Library for decades, and donated his personal collection of 30,000 books--a donation which increased the size of the university's book collections by 50%. In response, trustees allocated a large room within the library to house White's collections. This room was so large, it was called a library and originally opened as the "President White Library of History and Political Science." This section of the building is today known as the A. D. White Library.
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Andrew Dickson White, Cornell University’s co-founder and first president, built a great library. Although seldom identified today as one of the foremost collectors of the 19th century, his achievements have left a remarkable legacy. Unlike other famous book collectors of his time-J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry Edwards Huntington, John Jacob Astor, and James Lenox-he did not establish a separate institution to house his personal collections of books and manuscripts. His collections of materials on architecture, witchcraft, the Reformation, the French Revolution, Abolitionism and the Civil War were among the finest in the world during his lifetime.
Originally shelved in the large, three-story room within Uris Library that bears his name, White’s collections are no longer kept together in one place. Many of his books were moved to the stacks in Olin Library when it opened in 1961. It is perhaps more fitting and accurate to say that Andrew Dickson White built two great libraries. The first was his large and significant personal book collection.
When White offered his personal library to the university, he set two conditions. He asked that the university provide a suitable space to house his collection-he stipulated a fire-proof room-and he requested that proper provision be made for the ongoing maintenance of his collections. That “suitable space” is the Andrew Dickson White Library.
The maintenance and cataloging of the collection became the responsibility of George Lincoln Burr, a member of the Cornell class of 1871. Burr was White’s secretary and personal librarian as well as the first curator of the White Historical Library. Originally hired by White when he was a Cornell sophomore, Burr worked closely with White to develop and care for his library. We can safely posit that after 1879, the White collection must be seen as a collaborative effort between the two scholars. Each traveled to Europe on extended book-buying tours. Burr’s portrait by Cornell art professor Christian Midjo is prominently displayed on the north wall of the room, and a small drawing by R. H. Bainton on the first tier shows Burr as Cornell historian Carl Becker once described him: an “indefatigable scholar and bibliophile . . .
The Andrew Dickson White Library is filled with art work, furniture, and artifacts from White’s academic and diplomatic careers. White served as minister to Germany while still president of Cornell, and later also served as minister to Russia. Several pictures and photographs in the room depict Russian scenes. The artworks were collected by Mr.
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In 2015 as part of an initiative to "Bring Back Light to A. D. White," new lighting fixtures and outlets were integrated into the A. D. White library to provide the library's users with the connectivity they need in the 21st century while preserving the historic character of the A. D. White library. It currently holds books on the history of the book and publishing.
The Dean Room: A Hub of History and Modernity
The General Reading Room, now known as the Dean Room, is Uris Library’s most commanding interior space and its prominence is significant. The Dean Room is named for Arthur H. Dean, an Ithaca native, Cornell alumnus, attorney, diplomat, United Nations delegate, and Cornell University trustee. He and his wife Mary provided funds for the renovation of Uris Library and the building of Olin Library. The Dean Room is now, as it has always been, a reading room where one can study quietly or take advantage of other traditional library services. It is also a hub of new activities. In the northwest corner of the room hang portraits of Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, the University’s co-founders. Elements of Cornell’s history are preserved in Uris Library’s architecture and art work. The room has 11 large portraits of past Presidents and eight statue busts of important figures in Cornell's history.
The Kinkeldey Room: A Quiet Study Space
The Class of 1957 - Kinkeldey Room is one of several designated “quiet study” rooms in Uris Library that combines historical aesthetics with modern technology to provide an inspirational space for study and reflection. The room was named, in part, for Cornell’s fourth University Librarian, Otto Kinkeldey. A music professor and internationally known musicologist, he first came to Cornell in 1923 to head the university’s music department. The Kinkeldey Room is one of five spaces in the building named for Cornell librarians. When the University Library building was renovated and reopened as Uris Undergraduate Library in 1963, Stephen A. McCarthy, Cornell’s fifth University Librarian honored his four predecessors by naming reading rooms for them. Thanks to the generosity of the Class of 1957, the room was renovated in 2007and given an historic look and feel.
The Fiske Room: The "Fish Bowl"
The Fiske Room, better known to students as the “Fish Bowl” is named for Cornell’s first librarian, Willard Fiske. The Harris, Austen, and Kinkeldey Rooms are positioned one above the other at the west end of the building in space that was originally one of the library’s book stacks. A fifth reading room was named for E. R. B. The Willard Fiske Room in 1891 was the largest lecture space on the Cornell campus being a 900 seat auditorium. It is more commonly known by students as the "Fish Bowl" because its view from an above hallway.
Transition to a Modern Library
As early as 1949, university planners recognized the pressing need for additional library space. The University Library, affectionately known as “The Libe,” served as Cornell’s “Main Library” from 1891 to 1961. After Olin Library was built it was renovated, repurposed, and renamed Uris Undergraduate Library, after donors Harold D. Together, the two libraries were called the Central Libraries. Olin became the “research” or “graduate” library and Uris the “undergraduate” library, with resources, services, and reading rooms designed to accommodate undergraduate needs. As part of the renovations, the Great Reading Room, the historic centerpiece of the building, was renamed to honor Arthur H. Dean (Class of 1921), then chairman of Cornell’s Board of Trustees. An Ithaca native, attorney, diplomat, United Nations delegate, and avid book collector, Dean contributed funds for the construction of Olin and the refurbishing of Uris. In 1982, further renovations and the addition of a new underground wing provided even more study space. The Library removed the word “undergraduate” from Uris Library’s name in the 1990s to emphasize that ALL students were welcome to use ALL the libraries on campus. It continues to connect Cornell readers and researchers with the information they seek. Computer labs and reading rooms - many open for use 24 hours a day - offer wireless Internet access to the Library’s growing digital collections.
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The Cornell Chimes
As anyone who has studied in Uris Library can tell you, Cornell’s chimes are housed in McGraw Tower, which is attached to the library. Trek up the tower’s 161 steps during one of those concerts and you can watch chimesmasters in action, working solo or in teams with both hands and at least one foot working levers and pedals to play the 21 bells that comprise the renowned Cornell chimes. The original nine bells rang for the university’s opening ceremonies in 1868. Hung from a temporary wooden framework, and given by Jennie McGraw (later Jennie McGraw Fiske), the bells have been an important part of campus life ever since. McGraw Hall, one of Cornell’s first buildings, included a bell tower so that those nine bells could have a permanent home. When the library opened in 1891, the bells were installed in an even larger tower built for no other reason than to house them. As a distinctive Cornell landmark, McGraw Tower is frequently used to represent the university. The Cornell Chimes is a student-run organization, and the chimesmasters themselves are student and alumni musicians who bring music to the campus every day. On October 7, 1868, at the inauguration ceremonies for Cornell University, Francis Finch, friend and legal advisor to Ezra Cornell and later, Dean of the Cornell Law School, presented the University with a very special gift on behalf of a young benefactor. Miss Jennie McGraw had given Cornell a chime of nine bells. According to Cornell historian Morris Bishop, the chime was “the first to peal over an American campus.”
Jennie McGraw shared here father’s enthusiasm for the new university and his interest in its library. John McGraw, a founding trustee of Cornell, had provided the money to build McGraw Hall, located between Morrill and White Halls in today’s Arts Quad. When it was completed in 1872, the library was moved there from cramped quarters in Morrill Hall, and Jennie’s bells were placed in its tower, which had been specifically designed to house them. Both father and daughter had intended to endow the university’s library with generous funds to build and maintain its collections, but neither lived to see this work accomplished. When John McGraw died in 1877, Jennie inherited the bulk of his estate. Working with many of Cornell’s “founding fathers”-Ezra Cornell, Andrew D. But she died tragically of tuberculosis at the age of 41 just fours years later. Her combined gifts to Cornell were estimated to be at least one million dollars-an astounding sum at that time-and included funds for building a student hospital and a monument to her father and Ezra Cornell. It was also presumed to include the mansion she commissioned architect William Henry Miller to build on the hillside just west of campus.
Outraged by this outcome, Henry Williams Sage, the Ithaca businessman and university trustee who had been a financial advisor to Ezra Cornell and the McGraw’s, took it upon himself to fulfill Jennie’s plans. In the fall of 1891 the university opened its first library building and the chimes were transferred to their now permanent home in the new Library Tower. Henry Sage had dedicated his efforts to Jennie and paid tribute to her with three library memorials. Directly above the doors is a bronze portrait of Jennie by American sculptor Anne Whitney. The third memorial is more subtle and perhaps the most telling of the three. Located high above the main entrance to Uris, three monograms with carved initials honor those most responsible for providing Cornell with its library: ADW for Andrew Dickson White, HWS for Henry Williams Sage, and JMG for Jennie McGraw. Funds from Jennie’s estate were used by the university to purchase additional bells for the chime, to set up an endowment for a student hospital, and to build an addition to Sage Chapel. Sage Chapel’s Memorial Antechapel, built in 1883, is the final resting place for Ezra Cornell, Jennie McGraw Fiske, her father, her husband, and other Cornell dignitaries.
Upon Willard Fiske’s death in 1904, he left Cornell nearly $600,000, a sum that exceeded the amount of money he had inherited from Jennie. Jennie McGraw Fiske was a true supporter of Ezra’s dream. Through her generosity and good intentions, and the philanthropy they inspired, Jennie McGraw Fiske, was able to provide Cornell with its original chime, its student hospital, the University Library, and several priceless book collections and library endowments.
Art and Sculpture
Restored and revitalized, Song of the Vowels enjoys a newly-designed setting on the plaza between Olin and Uris libraries. Cornell University acquired the sculpture in 1962. Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz created Song of the Vowels in 1931, and had it cast in a limited edition of seven copies, of which Cornell’s is the fifth. Lipchitz’s Bather is a monumental study of geometric forms and intersecting planes that pivot around a central axis: the human bather’s torso.
As the building of Olin Library was nearing completion in 1961, a committee was charged with selecting sculpture for both the Olin Library sculpture court, and for the plaza between Olin and Uris libraries. The committee’s goal was to find modern sculpture of international renown. In January 1962, a major exhibition of Jacques Lipchitz sculpture came to Cornell’s Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art. With urging from art professor Jack Squier, the committee recommended the acquisition of Jacques Lipchitz’s work. Trustee Harold D. Uris, Class of 1925, and his brother, Percy, generously provided funds for both sculptures. Batherwas installed in June of 1962, while Song of the Vowels came to its home at Cornell in October of the same year.
Cornell University Library: A Legacy of Knowledge
Uris Library stands as a symbol of Cornell's dedication to providing accessible resources for all its students. Cornell may have had the first American university library intended for extensive use by undergraduates as well as faculty, thanks to the vision of its first University Librarian Willard Fiske. Cornell’s library was open nine hours a day, longer than any other college library in the country. From the beginning, the library was conceived as a non-circulating reference library.
Olin’s collection of tangible materials, nearly 2,000,000 print volumes, 2,000,000 microforms, and 650,000 maps, comprises the University’s largest information resource. Students and scholars praise this collection for its depth and breadth, its completeness, its physical condition and its accessibility. Researchers in the humanities and social sciences make growing use of digital tools, and scholarship in humanities and social sciences disciplines is increasingly disseminated electronically. While the Library’s collections continue to grow at a formidable rate, Olin’s patrons have worldwide access to an extensive collection of networked electronic resources. The thousands of journals to which the Cornell University Library subscribes in digital form include current and retrospective core titles in the social sciences and humanities. Olin Library supports the teaching and research needs of the Cornell community by maintaining an intelligent balance of print and digital collections and through creative and flexible approaches to emerging technologies useful for selection and acquisition of print and digital materials.
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