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Changing Spaces

By Olivia Gillingham, Library Specialist in the Marian Library

In researching the history of the Marian Library to prepare for our 75th anniversary exhibits coming up in August, I was struck by the humble origins of the Library, and how much our spaces and collections have changed since the Library’s founding in 1943. Not only was the Marian Library started with the donation of a single book from Father John A. Elbert, S.M., but it was founded out of a single room. In a report in a 1969 issue of Marian Library Studies, Brother William Fackovec, S.M., librarian for many years in the Marian Library, described the space as “a small, closet-like alcove” next to a lecture room in St. Mary’s Hall. Not long after its founding, the Marian Library was given use of a larger room in Albert Emanuel Library where the law collection was formerly housed. However modest these beginnings, they gave the Marian Library exactly what it needed at the time to start to make Father Elbert’s dream of a center for Marian scholarship a reality.

Nearly 10 years after the Marian Library had moved into the room in Albert Emanuel, it was badly in need of more space. In 1958 the Library secured the seminar room adjoining their space to use for offices, and stored the overflow of books in the university library stacks. But what the Marian Library and its founders had always hoped for was a building of their own.

In 1959 the Cincinnati Province of the Society of Mary began a fundraising campaign to enable such a space to be built. Thanks to 340 donors, including families with members in the Society and families of alumni and students of schools run by the Province, construction on a new, tri-level wing of Albert Emanuel began. The building was finished and dedicated in 1965 by Archbishop Alter of Cincinnati.

Only five years later, in 1970, the Marian Library moved once more, this time to the seventh floor of the newly constructed Roesch Library, where it continues to grow. In 2011, it acquired space on the fourth floor of Fitz Hall to house and maintain the extensive creche and art collections, and in 2016 was given space on Roesch’s third floor for the rare book and archival collections.    

Click through the photos in the gallery below to see our spaces then and now, and keep an eye out for more information about our 75th Anniversary exhibits opening August 13!

go.udayton.edu/marianlibrary75

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