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History

The University of Washington was founded in the spring of 1861, less than ten years after the creation of the Washington Territory and before the settler population of Seattle had exceeded 350 people. The optimism represented by the opening of this University is notable, particularly when viewed from the perspective of today's battlefields for legislative funding and public support for higher education. But the new western states of mid-19th century America dedicated themselves one after another to a new set of educational ideals, beginning with public access, secular foundations and an interest in extending knowledge as well as preserving and disseminating the traditional canon.

Founders of the Territorial University of Washington, buoyed by congressional passage of the Morrill Act in 1862, strove to provide a place of higher education that, in the nearly revolutionary language of the Morrill Act, would "...promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." Supporters of the University envisioned a curriculum that would be continuously adjusted to maintain its usefulness to the community and the individual.

But as was the case with many other educational institutions in the west, obstacles separating the actual from the ideal were at times nearly overwhelming, not the least being a properly prepared college student body. Wrote the first president of the University, William E. Barnard, in 1866:

Education throughout the (Puget) Sound District is in an extremely backward condition--as an illustration: not one of the misses attending the University the first quarter, after our arrival, could accurately repeat the multiplication tables....Society is also greatly disorganized. Drunkenness, gambling, licentiousness, profanity....We have two distilleries, eleven drinking establishments, one bawdy house....These are the influences we have had to encounter in our efforts to build up an institution of learning. I need not say it is discouraging and well-nigh hopeless.

The University did, however, prevail, surviving temporary closures, charges of financial improprieties and the resignations of fourteen University presidents over the course of its first five decades. But it was ironic that the same forces that allowed for the creation and democratization of higher learning in the territory and state also presented the constant threat of politicization of both the educational process and the educators themselves. Henry M. Suzzallo, one of the great presidents of the University, is a significant namesake for the main building of the UW library system, in that his career was characterized by intense political struggle over the realization of his personal vision for this University.

By 1915, the year of Suzzallo's appointment, campus scholarship was foundering. The student population barely exceeded 3,000, less than half the enrollments at comparable institutions. The faculty numbered just over 200. Within five years Suzzallo had revitalized the links between the school and the people of the state by promising to use the intellectual powers of the University to provide practical solutions and applications to the economic concerns of the public. His philosophy of education reflected in some ways a return to the ideals expressed in the Morrill Act. He was a skilled political player and within a very few years had established the University as the preeminent educational institution in the Pacific Northwest, in part by joining forces with economic interests throughout the region and establishing or rebuilding departments that would produce graduates prepared to work in areas practical to the region: fisheries, forestry, mining, education and business. He intended to cap this achievement with an equally extraordinary building: a university library to rival any in the country.

For its first fifty years, the library had been housed in a succession of temporary spaces culminating in a series of inadequate quarters in Denny Hall. It was then moved to a building originally constructed in 1909 for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, but considerably remodeled to accommodate a collection of 40,000 books. Ground was broken for Suzzallo's proposed library in April 1923; this was also the biennium in which the library was provided with its first large book appropriation, $94,600. The assistant librarian was sent to Europe on the first true buying trip, and over 23,000 books were added during the 1923-25 biennium, bringing the collection close to 150,000 volumes.

However, Suzzallo eventually found himself caught in a tangle of political disputes and rivalries as a result of the sweeping changes he had brought to the campus. The newly-elected governor Roland H. Hartley perceived Suzzallo as a threat to his own political programs and, amidst great controversy, dismissed the university president in 1926. An effort to recall the governor failed but he was eventually voted out of office in 1932. Suzzallo went on to become a spokesperson for the cause of American education at national and international forums. The library building, which was to have been the crown jewel of Suzzallo's on-going university administration, became instead a magnificent final tribute to him. The building was officially named in 1933, following Henry Suzzallo's death.

The new library opened in January 1927, with 175,000 volumes, a spectacular reading room, and a student body of over 7,200. In a pattern that has been repeated for many decades, the library found itself almost immediately in need of more shelving and staff space. The South Wing was completed in 1935, but the original plan for a 300 foot high carillon book tower was finally abandoned. More space was gained in building projects in 1947 and 1963. Finally, with the massive addition of the Kenneth S. Allen Library in 1990, named for the Associate Director of Libraries (1960-1982), the Libraries could comfortably house much of its multi-million volume collection and many of its varied services, at least for the near future.

Throughout its long construction history, the Suzzallo and Allen complex has remained geographically central to the campus, but library services expanded over the years to various departments and schools as the University grew. By the 1950s the library system included over twenty branches and facilities and the campus was poised for another surge of growth under the presidency of Charles M. Odegaard. This president redefined the mission of the University, reorganizing the curricula, the administrative structures and the role of the faculty in campus affairs.

When Charles Odegaard retired in 1973, he was hailed as having brought about an "educational renaissance" in the state. His tenure had seen the faculty expand from around 1,000 to over 2,400 and the Libraries grow from 1 million to over 2 million volumes. As financial support from the state melted away with the collapsing local economy, the University had begun its remarkable record of attracting and holding federal grants. The campus (and the Libraries) survived the political unrest of the late 1960s and emerged with an honorable record in the areas of academic freedom and new programs for minorities and was earning a growing regional, national and international reputation. The Libraries found itself supporting curriculum and research that, by 1973, placed the University among the top fifteen Ph.D.-granting institutions in the country.

If a university is to succeed academically, the library must be able to support the needs of its users. Over the years, the University of Washington Libraries has risen steadily in the comparative statistical tables maintained by the Association of Research Libraries and its predecessors:

By 1980-81, the Libraries ranked 13th overall among major research libraries in the United States and Canada with a collection of over 4 million volumes, the largest microform collection in the country at 3.4 million units, and 42,000 current serials. Materials expenditures exceeded $3 million and the student enrollment stood at 28,000. Twenty-four years later, the Libraries found itself at approximately the same rank, with over 6 million volumes and expenditures on materials over $9 million, 7th in the size of its microform collections and one of the largest electronic journal collections. The Libraries is 8th among research institutions in the number of materials it loans, but is 71 st in the number of items it borrows, a strong indication that the on-site collections are serving the local academic community effectively.

From the first photostatic copy machine, installed in 1928, to the hundreds of CD-ROM resources, online services and customized information services available today, the Libraries has worked to remain true to its mission to support quality education and research at every level offered by the University. As technology drives academic research and the science of information into remarkable new arenas, the mission remains unchanged.

Chronological Record of Head Librarians at the University of Washington

28 June, 2005 /Betsy Wilson