As the university’s leadership steered a rapidly growing 1960s Georgetown into a modern era with an increased focus on research, public service, and institutional autonomy, President Edward Bunn, S.J. made a commitment to build two new libraries that would support these and other emerging initiatives. The Blommer Science Library opened in 1962 as part of the Reiss Science Building, home to the biology, chemistry, and physics departments. Focus then turned to a much larger commitment: replacing Riggs Memorial Library, which had opened in 1891. Though Riggs was aesthetically magnificent, the university had long since outgrown Riggs’ capacity to house books and adequately serve the university’s teaching and research needs. A new Main Campus library was critical to preserving the university’s past and securing its future. In June 1964, shortly before the end of his tenure as university president, Edward Bunn, S.J. convened the New Library Planning Committee, chaired by James B. Horigan, S.J., Director of the Riggs Memorial Library. Over the next year the Planning Committee met to develop a set of service and organizational principles to guide the architect’s eventual plans.1
Decades earlier the university had begun to map potential sites for a new library, as it became clear that library needs exceeded Riggs’ available space. But selecting a site proved to be a complicated process, involving approvals from several municipal planning and regulatory groups. The Committee considered multiple locations for the building, including the current location of Alumni Square opposite the main gates, before agreeing on the southeast corner of 37th and Prospect Streets, previously home to a number of sports, including tennis, track, and baseball.2 The university commissioned the architectural firm of John Carl Warnecke and Associates in July 1965.3 A Georgetown resident, Warnecke had recently gained prominence as the architect of John F. Kennedy’s gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. Beyond this, Warnecke’s membership on the Washington, D.C. Fine Arts Commission and his prior experience designing a large academic library for the Naval Academy in Annapolis made him a strategic choice.
Most important to the hiring decision, however, was what The Washington Post called Warnecke’s “demonstrated ability to harmonize modern design with traditional settings.” Even though the Georgetown University campus embodied tradition, the new library it desired would embrace modernity in design as well as function.4
Warnecke welcomed the mandate to prioritize function and designed a building in the Brutalist style, its exterior defined primarily by columns of trapezoidal study carrels jutting out from its granite chip concrete sides, and its modernistic spires echoing the forms of nearby campus buildings. Funding for the Main Campus library was set in motion with the appointment of President Gerard J. Campbell, S.J. in 1964. The university applied for federal support and received a total of 4.6 million dollars from the Higher Education Facilities Act. The university and private donors funded the remaining 1.5 million dollars.5 Six months before breaking ground, university administrators informed the planners that the first two floors of the building had to be redesigned to accommodate faculty offices, classrooms, and the bookstore. The multipurpose use was originally to be for five years. But nearly two decades elapsed before the entire building was dedicated to library use.
Construction began with a ceremonial groundbreaking on June 10, 1967.6 University Chancellor Bunn, Director of Riggs Library, Horigan, and University President Campbell lifted the first shovels of soil. At the groundbreaking President Campbell said that, “for the undergraduate, the library will mean an important avenue of access to the general reservoir of ideas. . . for the faculty and their successors in the next generation, the graduate students, the library will be the scholars’ workshop, indispensable to their efforts not simply to define and disseminate the existing body of knowledge, but even more to extend its present limits. . . . And for our alumni and friends, for that wider community in which Georgetown resides, it will mean a sharing in our intellectual resources, which our physical limitations have hitherto made difficult.” While construction largely ran smoothly, the project budget became a concern as costs continued to rise. To counter the escalation, the University compromised by replacing the originally planned local granite exterior with the concrete composite seen today.
On January 8, 1970, as the building neared completion, news of a tragedy arrived on the Hilltop. Joseph Mark Lauinger, a 1967 alumnus, had been killed in action in Vietnam. Lauinger was one of 23 Hoyas who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Joseph Mark Lauinger, or Joe Lauinger, as he was known, was a history major in the College of Arts and Sciences and an active member of the Georgetown Chimes. Joe’s grandfather, Frank T. Lauinger, his father, P.C. Lauinger, and his three brothers also had attended Georgetown. After graduating in 1967, Joe joined the United States Army. He was a first lieutenant when he was killed in action, leading his platoon in Vietnam in January, 1970. For his actions in Vietnam, Joe received several commendations, including a Silver Star for gallantry in action, the Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. His medals are on display, along with his Silver Star citation, in the Lauinger Library lobby, accompanied by a portrait of him painted by Jay O’Meilia of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Joe’s hometown.
On March 10, 1970, recently appointed University President Robert J. Henle, S.J. announced to campus that the new library would be dedicated to Joseph Mark Lauinger. Henle stated that the naming “reflects a tradition of dedication and devotion to Georgetown, to our Church and to mankind. It provides the entire Georgetown community with an enduring impetus and a perpetual reminder of devoted service and supreme sacrifice.”7 As the building reached completion, the university suspended library service for several days so that books could be transferred from the Riggs Library to the newly named Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library. The move was a community effort. Volunteers from Alpha Phi Omega and the Collegiate Club assisted the moving company. Together, they completed the transfer of over 450,000 books in less than two weeks—just in time for the library’s opening on April 6, 1970.
In a ceremony featuring Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair” alongside the traditional Latin invocation “Veni Creator Spiritus,” Lauinger Library’s dedication took place in Gaston Hall on April 25. The University Glee Club and the Georgetown Chimes provided the music. Dr. Donald R. Penn, long-time professor of History at Georgetown, delivered the dedicatory address describing the opening of Lauinger as “a giant step forward” and “a milestone in the history of Georgetown.” Howard W. Gunlocke, a 1934 graduate who had funded the library’s rare book room and special collections department, was awarded an honorary degree.8 Six months after the library’s dedication, Lauinger family members traveled to Washington, DC for a cornerstone laying ceremony with library and university administrators.
Lauinger Library was just one of three libraries that the university opened within a several-year period. Lauinger opened in April 1970. In 1971 the new John Vinton Dahlgren Memorial Library joined the medical, dental, and nursing libraries under one roof in the Pre-Clinical Sciences Building. Shortly thereafter the Fred O. Dennis Law Library opened in the McDonough building. Georgetown’s libraries evolved to match the changing research profile of the university. They were valued as locally held, strictly controlled storehouses of knowledge, providing a competitive advantage to attracting and retaining scholars.
Research library collections around the country were growing rapidly in an effort to keep pace with expanding numbers of academic programs, students, and faculty. Granted a larger budget than previously available, Lauinger’s new University Librarian, Joseph Jeffs (C’49), greatly increased staff numbers and set out to use effectively the expansive space in the new building by doubling the Main Campus’ holdings from approximately 500,000 volumes to more than a million volumes over the next decade. A six-fold increase in government documents and major additions to the periodical collection contributed to this growth. The Woodstock College archives along with more than 160,000 volumes in theology and related fields comprising the Woodstock Theological Center Library came to Georgetown on loan in 1974. Shortly thereafter, the historically significant archives of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus were placed on deposit at Georgetown.
During these years, special collections also expanded as the library acquired several important collections. Special collections often grew from donated collections or monetary gifts to establish endowments designated for specific materials or subjects. This generosity was and continues to be made possible by the Georgetown Library Associates, established in 1975, as well as by Library Board members and other alumni and friends of the library.
Over the next few decades the library’s collection continued to grow beyond all expectations, exceeding two million volumes in less than 25 years. While seemingly endless shelves of printed volumes still dominated library spaces, the burgeoning of automation and computer programming was having a significant impact on library operations. The online catalog replaced the printed card catalog; online circulation systems replaced manual methods of circulation; and the World Wide Web was born in 1989.
These developments drove a series of changes in library spaces and services made possible by both university and donor funds. In 1993, new study space replaced the massive card catalog on the third floor. The very popular Murray Room was also updated at this time, and in 1994 the Writing Center was welcomed into Lauinger.
As years went by and technologies evolved, the library created other learning and media spaces. The innovative Electronic Information Resource Center and the Picchi Multimedia Room provided access to the Internet and high-end computers to create or play back multimedia projects. In 1998 the Wilbert B. Dubin Memorial Classroom was designed as a space for librarians to provide students with interactive online instruction. The Millennium Newsroom, created in 2003, offered an inviting space for accessing contemporary national and international news sources. Also in 2003 The Corp opened the Midnight Mug in Lauinger—forever changing the policy of no food in the library.
Enhancing the traditional audio-visual responsibilities of the library, the Gelardin New Media Center transformed Lauinger’s first floor space in 2001. Also housing the relocated Picchi Multimedia Room, the Center provided specialized software and state-of-the-art equipment. Through the years, the Center has added support for emerging technologies and instructional opportunities in video production, podcasting, and graphic design that empower users to communicate the results of their research and scholarship more effectively through digital media. Most recently, the Gelardin Center has provided support for gaming and immersive technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, with a focus on their applications in teaching and learning.
The library’s Maker Hub, inaugurated in 2016, supplies a new set of tools, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, electronics, and textiles. It guides students to find and apply connections between thinking and doing, between writing and making, and between classroom-based and experiential learning. The Maker Hub and its adjacent Idea Lab serve as collaborative spaces for Georgetown community members to design and test ideas, to develop and iterate physical prototypes, and to explore their intellect and their imagination through making.
In 2015 the generosity of donors made possible another major advancement: the Booth Family Center for Special Collections. A state-of-the-art space for the study, housing, and preservation of special collections, the Booth Center is home to rare books, manuscripts, works of art, and university archives. The graciously designed suite includes a reception area, the Paul F. Betz Reading Room, the Barbara Ellis Jones (C’74) Inquiry Classroom, an environmentally controlled storage area, a collections processing zone, staff offices, and improved exhibition spaces—foremost among them, the Charles Marvin Fairchild Memorial Gallery. The Booth Center has proven to be an asset to teaching, learning, and scholarship at Georgetown.
In addition to providing physical spaces and in-person services that contribute to the academic success of students and faculty, the library has also invested in creating virtual spaces and services that support, promote, and preserve Georgetown’s scholarly work. Initiated in 2004, DigitalGeorgetown is an online portal providing access to more than 500,000 digital objects, including streaming media, electronic versions of theses and dissertations from Georgetown students, image collections, and a wide range of scholarly and archival materials. From student publications, such as The Hoya and “Utraque Unum,” to rare manuscripts and incunabula, the breadth of this digital repository continues to expand and attract scholars and the public both locally and from around the world.9
- 1Old Archives: Library Files, box 4, GTA-000442, Georgetown University Archives
- 2Old Archives: Library Files, box 1, GTA-000442, Georgetown University Archives
- 3"Library Architect Named." Georgetown Record, July 1965
- 4"Warnecke to Design Georgetown's Million Volume, $6-Million Library." Washington Post, July 11, 1965
- 5Old Archives: Library Files, box 5, GTA-000442, Georgetown University Archives
- 6"Ground Breaking at Georgetown University." Georgetown University News Service release, June 10, 1967
- 7"Georgetown to Name New Library for Alumnus Killed in Vietnam." News from Georgetown University, March 10, 1970
- 8"Dedication of New Library held in Gaston." The Hoya, April 30, 1970
- 9Text based on "History of Lauinger Library, 1970-2020," published by the Georgetown University Library, 2020
