Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Grainger Engineering Library Symposium [PAGE 4]

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WELCOMING

WILLIAM DEAN OF THE R. COLLEGE

REMARKS

OF ENGINEERING

SCHOWALTER,

A mentor of mine was fond of saying that the role of a university is "to keep the books and to write the books." What he meant, of course, was that research universities have an obligation to teach what is known (to keep the books) and to extend the limits of what is known (to write the books). You will learn from others details regarding the way the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center continues and extends the well-known excellence of the University of Illinois Library, and how we now have a unique combination of electronic and printed access to the information of this information age. What I wish to emphasize in my brief remarks are the human scale and human impact this marvelous new edifice will have on generations of Illinois students and faculty. Thus, I will address features of our new building, which I hope you will notice during the tours scheduled immediately after the symposium. First, the lightness and informality of what is actually a massive structure are architectural accomplishments of the first order. It is no accident that the color scheme and even the furnishings blend in with the building to provide a continuity of style and mood made possible by an architect who did not restrict his attention to the placement of bricks and mortar, but extended his eye to the microscale of design, even to the level of some of the chairs that students use This regard for warmth and intimacy provides compensation for the seemingly impersonal activities of electronic searches of databases thousands of miles away or the shipping of results to the terminal of a coauthor halfway around the globe. It is already difficult to appreciate how much the Grainger Library has altered the face of this campus. Just a few months ago, the bright green landscape to the south of the library was a