Fondren Library is the main library of

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

. The library is named for Walter W. Fondren, a co-founder of the Humble Oil & Refining Company, whose family donated $1 million in 1946 for construction of the library. The building was designed by Houston architect John F. Staub and was notable for its open stack arrangement and

art deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

influence in the architecture. The library was dedicated on November 4, 1949. The library celebrated its 60th birthday in 2009. An addition to the back of the building in 1969, formally known as the Graduate Research Wing, added of research space including study rooms, stacks space, and space for the library's special collections, the Woodson Research Center (named for Benjamin Woodson). In December 1997, the Hobby Foundation designated $21.4 million specifically for improvements in Fondren Library. This gift allowed for additional space planning including the building in 2004 of the Library Service Center, a high-density offsite shelving facility that houses less-used materials in a climate-controlled environment. In 2005-06, Fondren underwent an extensive renovation creating access through the entire library, a new first-floor Hobby Information commons, and a Rice-only study space on the sixth floor with dynamic views of the campus. ox, Stephen. Rice University: The Campus Guide. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001 Consultation Among Institution Precedes Library Design: Fondren Library, The Rice Institute, Houston, Texas." Architectural Record (June 1950): 136-42.

Mission statement

The mission statement is as follows: "The mission of the Fondren Library of Rice University is to support the highest aspirations of the University in the areas of research, teaching, and service, through innovative research and information services, access to scholarly resources, collaborative alliances, and provision and shared use of physical and virtual spaces."

Collections

Fondren Library currently subscribes to more than 141,000 journals in multiple formats and houses more than 2.8 million print volumes and 3 million microforms. The library is a selective depository of U.S. and Texas government publications and a depository for U.S. patents and trademarks. Woodson Research Center contains more than 475 manuscript collections with emphasis on Texas, Houston, history, science, and English literature. Woodson contains more than 475 manuscript collections focused on the history of

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

and the greater

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

area,

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

, and

oil and gas A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologi ...

. Other subject areas include

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

history, hip hop/rap music-related materials from the Swishahouse record label, science, and literary authors with Rice connections. Also in the Center are the papers of

faculty members and alumni with achievements in the humanities, sciences, engineering, and the arts. Woodson also contains substantial materials related to the composer

Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among th ...

, the biologist

Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and Internationalism (politics), internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentiet ...

, and the Houston businessman and politician Jesse H. Jones.

References

External links

Fondren Library home pageFondren Library mobile website
{{authority control Library buildings completed in 1949 Rice University buildings and structures University and college academic libraries in the United States Art Deco architecture in Texas Federal depository libraries