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Mann's Arrival

Cornelius J. White, State Architect for New York, created the design of a new library building for the Cornell agricultural quad in the late 1930s. However, the lingering impact of the Great Depression and the U.S. entry into World War II delayed the project for over a decade, and construction work didn’t start in earnest until 1949. Finally in 1952 the staff of the new Albert R. Mann Library welcomed the Cornell community to a graceful Art Deco style building that offered a consolidated research collection and a generous expanse of airy public study spaces on the building’s high-ceilinged second floor. At the building’s core was as a rock-solid unified nine tier stacks structure, which stored a collection of about 200,000 volumes, available on request via a state-of-the-art (for the early1950s!) paging system using pneumatic tubing and a book elevator. And in its location as a crossroads between two major buildings of the Ag Quad (Warren Hall and the Plant Sciences building), the Mann building lobby and its adjoining reading rooms also became a popular venue for squeezing in some course reading between classes, browsing a current newspaper or magazine, relaxing and meeting up with friends.