Celebrating the 10th anniversary of The Valley Library remodel!

Look how far we’ve come…

2009 marks the 10th anniversary of a major remodel on the 1963 Kerr Library building. In 1999, the $47 million 3-year renovation project was complete and building was re-named after the Valley family, generous library donors. This project was also the first OSU building campaign and all the funding was from matched grants or donations with over 5,000 individual donors and a pledge of $1 million in fees from the student body.

Yesterday we mixed cookies, historic pictures, and a lot of gratitude to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Valley Library remodel project with a new Flickr set. We’ve put up a set of historic images of the Kerr/Valley Library, including some great shots of the construction during the big remodel in the late 1990s. And, because it’s a “then & now” set, we added images of the Cookies in the Library Quad party on May 28th.

Fun Facts:

• We added 147,000 square feet in new space and renovated 189,000 square feet.
• The new library included 210,360 bricks, 650,000 squares of sheetrock, and 100 miles of voice/data cable.
• The bamboo flooring in Special Collections is from Central Northern China. It is a giant timber bamboo and grows 40 feet in the first year.
• Because of Oregon’s Percent for Public Art Program, $270,000 funded 80 different artists and 130 pieces, which are all on display in the library.
• 977 workers were employed on the project.
• Groundbreaking occurred in 1996 and the dedication was on May 28, 1999.

Check it out! http://www.flickr.com/photos/osuarchives/sets/72157618881854630/