Buies Creek, N.C.—For the first time since its completion, Campbell University’s Friends of the Library (FOL) organization met in the newly renovated Wiggins Memorial Library on Friday, Nov. 12. Usually preceded by a formal dinner in Marshbanks Dining Hall, this meeting was held in Wiggins Hall in its entirety because the library has become such a focal point of the University, said FOL President Dorothea Stewart Gilbert.
“The meeting tonight is extra special because we are in the new library,” Stewart Gilbert said. “It is a comfortable and inviting learning environment that has become the pride of the whole campus.”
Campbell President Dr. Jerry M. Wallace and Dr. Dwaine Greene, vice president for Academics and Provost, recalled the history of the Campbell library from its establishment in 1923 in the old Kivett Hall as an accreditation requirement to achieve junior college status, to its move to the Carrie Rich Building in 1956.
“Campbell University has had its share of difficulty in what it has accomplished,” Wallace said. “No more so than in the renovation and development of the library, but it is the capstone of our achievement, an important event in history.”
Borree Kwok, director of Library Services, explained what was involved in moving the library from the Carrie Rich Memorial Building to the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law, now Wiggins Library, last June. A total of 241,000 print volumes, 934,000 microforms, 8,000 pieces of audio/visual materials, 120 pieces of computer equipment and 4,200 feet of shelving had to be transported to the new facility.
“It was a daunting task,” Kwok said, “but the move and the renovation add up to an 89 percent increase in floor space and double the amount of seating space.”
It also means the addition of several new light-filled reading areas, 10 group study rooms, a 24-hour study lounge and faculty research areas.”
“I’ve loved libraries all of my life,” Greene said. “They are places where you can recharge your batteries. From the book mobile that used to stop in my home town to this spacious new Wiggins Memorial Library, they are wonderful, thrilling places. I love what they mean to people, and I’ve loved being part of the process that has brought this great library to Campbell University.”
Established in 1972, the Friends of the Library helps support and promote the library program at Campbell.