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Chanita Hughes Halbert, PhD
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_0397
Faculty, portrait
A student with the Real-Time Eating Activity and Children’s Health (REACH) Lab gathers activity data.
Pictured: Kelsey McAlister, Kristen Moore
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_1420
health behavior
Rima Habre, MSc, ScD monitors air quality as part of environmental health research.
Pictured: Rima Habre, MSc, ScD
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_1361
Faculty, staff, environmental health
Arthur H. Dean Room
The General Reading Room, now known as the Dean Room, is Uris Library’s most commanding interior space and its prominence is significant. While not the first library to contain such a space, architect William Henry Miller’s design reflects a major shift in how academic libraries functioned.
Previously, university libraries were essentially storage facilities open to faculty only a few hours per week. But Cornell’s library building was designed to accommodate a collection of 400,000 books and to provide a convenient way for people to access and use those books. Built into the natural slope of the site, no book in the library was more than 120 feet away from the service desk at the west end of the General Reading Room – the same place where today’s circulation desk is located.
Cornell may have had the first American university library intended for extensive use by undergraduates as well as faculty, thanks to the vision of its first University Librarian Willard Fiske. Cornell’s library was open nine hours a day, longer than any other college library in the country. Hours were extended even further in 1885, when Cornell’s library, then located in McGraw Hall, became one of the first American libraries to be lighted by electricity.
The library may have been open, but books did not leave the building. From the beginning, the library was conceived as a non-circulating reference library. Only later after conducting a survey of other libraries in 1908 did Cornell agree to allow books to be borrowed by its faculty and students.
By then, the stacks were already becoming overcrowded. Lack of adequate space for books and readers became a frequent source of contention over the next 50 years and these pressures were not completely remedied until Olin Library was built in 1961.
Renamed in 1962 for Harold D. Uris, a graduate of Cornell’s Class of 1925 and a Cornell trustee from 1967 to 1972, Uris Library was designated as the “undergraduate library,” so that these students would not have to compete with graduate students or faculty for resources, services or study space.
The Dean Room is named for Arthur H. Dean, an Ithaca native, Cornell alumnus, attorney, diplomat, United Nations delegate, and Cornell University trustee. He and his wife Mary provided funds for the renovation of Uris Library and the building of Olin Library. Thousands of rare books and manuscripts have been added to the library collections as a result of their generosity, and to foster a love of books and reading among Cornell’s students, they also began the library’s first undergraduate book collection contest, which lasted from 1966 until 1989.
The Dean Room is now, as it has always been, a reading room where one can study quietly or take advantage of other traditional library services. It is also a hub of new activities. Card catalogs have been replaced by computers and wireless connections make access to Cornell’s digital resources possible here and throughout the building.
In the northwest corner of the room hang portraits of Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, the University’s co-founders. They are joined by portraits of Cornell’s past presidents, which proceed in chronological order as you move counterclockwise around the room.
Elements of Cornell’s history are preserved in Uris Library’s architecture and art work. As you tour the building, we hope that you can appreciate Andrew Dickson White’s belief that: “the library is the heart of the university, ‘the culmination of all.’”
Lourdes Baezconde Garbanati, PhD, MPH, MA
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_0135
Faculty, portrait
Roberta McKean Cowdin, PhD
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_0633
Faculty, portrait
•Collection: Campus Artifacts, Art & Memorabilia
•Date: ca. 1500
•Description: “A very fine choir stall in carved wood, polychromed in red and blue. North Italian work of art, Tyrolian influence circa 1500. It consists of four seatsthe back panels are delicately carved with designs of the Gothic type. The dome shows an inscription beneath an openwork frieze representing foliage and bearing busts of angels holding coats of arms, executed with charming realism.” Sign. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Myron Taylor.
•Culture: North Italian
•Subject: Taylor, Myron Charles, 1874-1959; Taylor, Myron, Mrs.
•Repository: Cornell University
•Donor: Taylor, Myron Charles, 1874-1959|Taylor, Myron, Mrs.
•Image View Description: Front View
•Image View Type: General
•Repository Location: Anabel Taylor Hall. Chapel, West side of apse, Cornell University
•Style/Period: Tyrolian
•Materials/Techniques: Carved wood; Polychromed in red and blue
•Work Type: choir stalls; information signs
The story unfolds in the 1950s during the so-called “red scare” and the witchcraft which surrounds the main character is most easily interpreted as a stand-in for communism.
Howard Hu, MD, MPH, ScD
Flora L. Thornton Chair
Department of Population and Public Health Sciences
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_1276
Faculty, portrait
Chanita Hughes Halbert, PhD
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_0404
Faculty, portrait
Rima Habre, MSc, ScD and Lisa Valencia work in the Soto Street wet lab and perform air monitoring activities as part of environmental health research.
Pictured (from left): Lisa Valencia, Rima Habre, MSc, ScD
(Photo by: John Davis)
original file name: 20211103_Davis_Keck_1329
Faculty, staff, environmental health