Bizzell Memorial Library
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The Bizzell Memorial Library, known also as Bizzell Library, is a five-story brick structure located at the
University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...
in
Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...
,
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
. It is an elaborate
Collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...
or Cherokee Gothic building, designed by the architecture firm Layton Hicks & Forsyth and erected in 1928 during the administration of OU's fifth president,
William Bennett Bizzell William Bennett Bizzell (October 14, 1876 – May 13, 1944) was the president of three American higher education institutions. He was the fifth president of the University of Oklahoma, the president of Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas ( ...
.


Building history

When the university opened in 1890, the university library was located in the only campus building, which was destroyed by fire in 1903. A new library was constructed and opened in 1904, but the university's needs and collections quickly outgrew a space that was intended to last for decades. The
Oklahoma Legislature The Legislature of the State of Oklahoma is the state legislative branch of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma House of Representatives and Oklahoma Senate are the two houses that make up the bicameral state legislature. There are 101 sta ...
appropriated $75,000 in 1917 to construct yet another library building that could be expanded in the future, but subsequent legislatures did not appropriate necessary funds to allow the project to move forward. In 1927, state officials budgeted $500,000 for construction of a new, three-story library. New facilities included a "treasure room" to hold rare books and special collections and separate spaces for graduate and undergraduate work. A reading room, known today as the Great Reading Room, held the bulk of the 105,000 volumes the university then owned. The new library was dedicated on February 21, 1929. Under George Lynn Cross, the University's seventh president, a 1958 addition effectively tripled the size of the structure. After a generous donation by Doris W. Neustadt, a 1982 addition was completed during the
William S. Banowsky William Slater Banowsky (March 4, 1936 – April 28, 2019) was an American academic administrator. He served as president of Pepperdine University from 1971 to 1978, then as president of the University of Oklahoma from 1978 to 1982 when he resign ...
administration. Presently, Bizzell serves as the flagship research library in the state of Oklahoma and of the University's system of eight libraries on the Norman campus that hold a combined 5 million volumes. Bizzell also houses the University Libraries administration; the History of Science, Nichols Rare Books, Bass Business and Bizzell Bible Special Collections; and the University of Oklahoma School of Library and Information Studies. The University of Oklahoma Library System is a member of the
Association of Research Libraries The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 127 research libraries at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and research l ...
and is the second largest system of libraries in the
Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...
.


Desegregation landmark

The library is historically significant for its association with the racial desegregation court case of George McLaurin, a retired black professor who applied to the university to pursue a doctorate in education. McLaurin was at first denied admission to the university solely on the basis of race, in accordance with Oklahoma law at the time. After a court ruling, he was admitted, but under the
separate but equal Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protecti ...
doctrine he was given a desk in the mezzanine of this building, rather than being allowed use of the regular reading room. He appealed the segregation up to the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
, in '' McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education''. In this and three companion cases, the Supreme Court overturned ''
Plessy v. Ferguson ''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in qualit ...
''. The decisions were precedents for the more famous ''
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' case in 1954. For its association with segregation and the court case overturning it, the building was declared a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 2001.


See also

*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Oklahoma The List of National Historic Landmarks in Oklahoma contains the landmarks designated by the U.S. Federal Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal govern ...
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Cleveland County, Oklahoma __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Cleveland County, Oklahoma. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland County, ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Library buildings completed in 1929 National Historic Landmarks in Oklahoma University and college academic libraries in the United States Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma University of Oklahoma campus Gothic Revival architecture in Oklahoma University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland County, Oklahoma