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In 1859, Penn State's first library collection
consisted of about 1,500 volumes in agriculture and the sciences
and was housed in Old Main, along with most other college facilities.
The nineteenth-century library was considered an auxiliary to study
and by 1888 was open six hours a day. By the turn of the century,
the library had grown to nearly 20,000 volumes. The overcrowding
finally was relieved by construction of the Carnegie Library, a
gift of steel magnate and college trustee Andrew Carnegie.
The library moved to what is now the Carnegie
Building in 1904. The 50,000-volume-capacity building had the beginnings
of some special collections, including government documents and
the Penn State Room. Departmental libraries in a number of the sciences
also had been established by this time, and some continue today
as our branch libraries. The collection outgrew the building, which
by 1940 contained three times as many volumes as the number for
which the building was designed, and moved into the new Pattee Library.
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