What is your most enduring memory of Alderman Library?
As Alderman Library prepares to reopen after a complete $160 million renovation, we asked UVA alumni to think back to their days spent among the Stacks.
“Sitting in the Rare Books room perusing old manuscripts. Sounds silly, I know, but holding history in my hands made an indelible impression.”—Steve Taylor (Col ’74)
“I’ll never forget studying in the McGregor Room and hearing the Chapel bells go off across the street but not their usual ringing on the hour. They were haunting and irregular, so I looked up the meaning and found the Seven Society tradition of ringing the carillon when a Seven passes away. I couldn’t have been in a better location to experience that, and I was able to hear the ringing of the Seven bells twice as a graduate student living on the West Range.”—Kelly Thompson O’Meara (Arch ’19, ’23)
“The beautiful, leaded glass doors on some of the bookshelves with the sliding/rolling ladder—so beautiful and charming.”—Elizabeth T. Collins (Grad ’82)
“Sitting six to a table studying textbooks, my first Starbucks drink, discovering what ‘stacks’ were. I can still picture my mates Will, Brian, Jason sitting across the table.”—Brooke Van Rensselaer (Educ ’02)
“Checking out a book for a term paper in 1968 and realizing I was the first person to check that book out since the late 1800s or early 1900s. It was just one more reminder of how remarkably extensive the library collections were.” —Randolph Turner (Col ’70)
“Finding a hidden carrel deep in the Stacks to study. And leaving mysterious notes inside copies of The Sound and the Fury.”—Arun G. Rao (Col ’98)
“Writing my MA thesis in the Old Stacks in the summer of 1966, when the New Stacks were being built. There was no air conditioning, and the water in the water fountains was not chilled, but you could open the window in a carrel to catch a breeze. I enjoyed my little ‘office’ and completed my thesis on time.”—Paul L. Gaston (Grad ’66, ’70)
“Taking the rickety elevator to the lower-level Stacks.”—Susan Reiss (Col ’85)
“Winding my way through the labyrinth of floors and narrow passageways, amid the scent of aging books, to a quiet carrel at Alderman—my absolute favorite place to study at UVA.” —Anna Palmer (Col ’95, Law ’00)
“Working in the Stacks as I did research while I was in high school, and then as a UVA student conducting research for my undergraduate thesis in the history department. Sooooo many microfiche documents to review! I loved it.”—Debra Johnson Darling (Col ’85)
“Reading the amazing graffiti etched into the carrels in the Stacks.”—Rodney Follin (Col ’77, Grad ’80)
“Studying in the Stacks and having to call security as I had not realized the library closed and locked me in.”—Leslie B. Oppleman (Col ’71, Med ’75)
“Rushing to the printers near the entrance to print a last-minute paper right before class.”—Lauren Cassady (Col ’13, Law ’17)
“Meeting the same guys at the same table there every evening to study. My friend Bonnie and I refused to study in the Nursing library!”—Laura Lenox Thigpen (Nurs ’68)
“Discovering the illustrated Jesuit translations of Balzac’s Human Comedy. For almost five terms I’d work my way through those beautiful volumes, one hour a week or more—a wonderful escape from Organic and Calculus.” —Dwight Hamner (Col ’73)
“The tiny stairs in the back Stacks. Looking for something deep on a mezzanine shelf and realizing 3 hours later how long I had been sitting on the floor reading some other book or books that caught my curiosity.”—Wynne Stuart (Grad ’81)
“It was a time of Polish jokes and I heard a lot. One was something to the effect of, ‘What is the shortest book,’ with the answer being, ‘Important Polish Americans.’ So I proceeded to search for such a book and found Who’s Who in Polish America and @#$%^& it was, in fact, very thin. Then I looked for my name and the only one was a baseball player who had changed his name to Simmons!”—George Symanski (Col ’66, Law ’69)