Libraries of American Universities Quiz

Answer: Yale University

Sterling Memorial Library was designed by James Gamble Rogers and is an example of Gothic Revival architecture. It is named after John William Sterling, who had studied at Yale for his undergraduate studies, and had founded the law firm Shearman & Sterling. Sterling had donated 17 million dollars to Yale University back in 1918. The library is well-known for its numerous panes of stained glass. Sterling Memorial Library is also connected to the Bass Library of Yale University.

Answer: University of Washington, Seattle

Henry Suzzallo was president of the University of Washington from 1915 to 1926. The library was renamed after him when Suzzallo died in 1933. The library has multiple wings, with the first two wings being built in a Collegiate Gothic style and the third wing built in a modernist concrete and glass style.

The fourth wing was named after Kenneth S. Allen, father of Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. The first two wings contain terra cotta sculptures of various thinkers, philosophers and writers on the exterior.

Answer: University of Chicago

Regenstein Library is the main library of the University of Chicago, and is known for its brutalist architecture. It is named after the industrialist Joseph Regenstein. The library, located in Hyde Park, Chicago, was designed by the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which also designed the Burj Khalifa. Walter Netsch was the principal architect. Notably, the library stands on the former site of the Alonzo Stagg Field, where the first controlled artificial nuclear chain reaction took place under Enrico Fermi.

Answer: Johns Hopkins University

The George Peabody Library was formerly known as the Library of the Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore. The library is named after the American financier George Peabody, who donated 300,000 dollars for the Peabody Institute in 1857. Remarkably, the collections of the library can be used by the general public, just like George Peabody had envisioned.

The library became a part of Johns Hopkins University in 1987. Today, the Peabody Institute is a conservatory and university-preparatory institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

Answer: Princeton University

The full name of Firestone Library is Harvey S. Firestone Library, named after Harvey Firestone, the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. It is the headquarters of the Princeton University Library system. It was built in 1948, after World War II.

A remarkable feature is that most of the books are actually stored in underground levels. One of the most notable parts of the Firestone Library is the Scheide Library in it, which is a part of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

Answer: Harvard University

Widener Library is named after Harry Elkins Widener, a book collector who belonged to the Class of 1907 of Harvard College, and was one of the people who died when RMS Titanic sank. His mother, Eleanor Elkins Widener, built the building in his honour. Widener Library is the central library among the Harvard College Libraries, and consists of a very vast and wide collection in the humanities and social sciences. One of its core parts is the Harry Elkins Widener Collec­tion, which hosts books that were collected by Harry Widener himself.

Answer: New York University

Elmer Holmes Bobst Library is the main library of New York University, and is located in Lower Manhattan. It opened in 1973 and is named after Elmer Holmes Bobst, an American businessman who was primarily involved in the pharmaceutical industry. He was also a trustee of New York University for a long time and had donated 11.5 million dollars for the completion of the library.

The library was designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster. The Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives inside the Bobst Library is notable for housing material related to the history of radicalism, communism, socialism and other left-wing idealogies.

Answer: Columbia University

Butler Library was built in the neoclassical style, and its architecture was planned by James Gamble Rogers. It was initially built in 1931-1934 but was renamed as Butler Library in 1946 after Nicholas Murray Butler, a former President of Columbia University and also a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The façade of the library consists of numerous pillars in the ionic style. One of the most remarkable features of the library is the inscription of names of numerous philosophers, authors and religious figures above the columns.

Answer: University of California, San Diego

The Geisel Library is named after Theodor Seuss Geisel, whom we better know as the children's author Dr. Seuss. The building is one of the most famous and recognized buildings in the campus of the University of California, San Diego, because of its notable brutalist architecture.

Although the building, designed by William Pereira, first opened in 1970, it was renamed as Geisel Library in 1995. The library building is designed in order to give a distant impression of a hand holding a pile of books.

The Geisel Library is famous for the Mandeville Special Collections and Archives, which houses original drawings, sketches and notebooks of Dr. Seuss.

Answer: Stanford University

The Cecil H. Green Library is the largest library in Stanford University, and primarily houses volumes regarding social sciences and the humanities. Its construction originally started after an earlier library was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The library was named as the Cecil H. Green Library when the annex to the library was built in 1980. Cecil Howard Green, after whom the library was named, was a geophysicist who was one of the founders of Texas Instruments. He was also the benefactor behind the erstwhile Green College, University of Oxford.