[lead]Two Thousand Seventeen marks the thirtieth anniversary of the John C. Hodges Library. Join us October 23 to celebrate.[/lead]
[lead]We’ll begin our celebration with a Street Fair in the Commons.[/lead] From 3 to 5 p.m., Monday, October 23, “Main Street” in the open-space Commons on the second floor of Hodges Library will host “retro” arcade games, a radio broadcast — and 1,000 orange-and-white cupcakes! Guests who are willing to test their knowledge of the library at one of the carnival booths can pick up tickets for a drawing.
A reception and remarks will follow at 5:30 p.m. in the first-floor galleria outside Special Collections. The adjacent Elaine Altman Evans Exhibit Area will unveil new displays including the original architects’ model for Hodges Library and a pictorial retrospective of “UT Then & Now.” Both the Street Fair and the reception are free and open to all.
Staff wait to load books onto specially-constructed book trucks.Thirty years ago, library staff moved and merged a million books from three different locations into the brand-new John C. Hodges Library.
Paul Trentham, head of Circulation, staffs a paging station.
The new Hodges Library was a significant expansion of an earlier library that stood on the same site. During the new construction, books from the earlier Hodges Undergraduate Library (UGL) were temporarily relocated. Upon completion of the new building, library and facilities staff – not an outside contractor – moved and merged 1.1 million books, 1.5 million microforms and half a million maps, government documents, and other items from Hoskins Library, the old UGL, and a storage facility. The move took three months.
Amazingly, they managed to track and provide access to the collection throughout the move.
