The Cecil H. Green Library (commonly known as Green Library) is the main library on the
Stanford University campus and is part of the
SUL system. It is named for
Cecil H. Green.
Green Library houses 4 million volumes, most of which are related to the
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
and
social sciences
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
. Libraries elsewhere on campus cover specialized areas such as Business, Law, Art, Medicine, or Engineering.
Books from Green and other Stanford libraries are being scanned as part of the
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...
project.
History
The earliest library at Stanford was in the inner quadrangle. It was housed in one large room capable of accommodating 100 readers. This was replaced in 1900 by a separate building on the outer quadrangle, named the
Thomas Welton Stanford
Thomas Welton Stanford (1832–1918), also known as Welton Stanford, was an American-born Australian businessman, spiritualist and philanthropist, most notably toward Stanford University, which was founded by his older brother Leland Stanford. A ...
library after its major donor. This library was recognized as being too small, and a new larger library in a separate building was begun, but it was destroyed in the
1906 San Francisco earthquake before it could be occupied.
A major new library was approved in 1913 and completed in 1919.
This building forms the older portion of the Green Library. In 1980, a larger annex was added and the library renamed for Cecil H. Green. The original part of the building is now known as the Bing Wing for
Peter Bing, who donated a substantial amount of money for fixing it after the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Design
Green Library's design was a significant and early departure from the architectural style of Stanford's Main Quad.
Jane Stanford
Jane Elizabeth Lathrop Stanford (August 25, 1828 – February 28, 1905) was an American philanthropist, co-founder of Stanford University in 1885 (opened 1891) along with her husband, Leland Stanford, as a memorial to their only child, Leland ...
held a design competition for the new library and chose the submission of Joseph MacKay, a San Francisco art glassmaker, which drew more on
Romanesque style than the existing buildings. Several stories tall, this original construction was refurbished in 1999 and now forms the main halls and rotunda of the library.
See also
*
Stanford University Libraries
References
External links
Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information ResourcesInformation Center, Green Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Green Library
University and college academic libraries in the United States
Stanford University libraries
Library buildings completed in 1980
Federal depository libraries
California State depository libraries
Libraries in Santa Clara County, California
Buildings and structures destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake