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The Story of the Building

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On October 6, 1950, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey addressed a crowd of about 2,000 Cornell students, faculty, staff and construction workers gathered at the site of a new library building for the College of Agriculture and the School of Home Economics. Although the building wouldn’t be opened for another two years, the arrival of a central library for these two colleges was eagerly anticipated. Gov. Dewey declared that the investment now being realized in this project would be a cornerstone for a strong future of excellence for the university, for New York State, and for the country at large.

Completed and formally opened in 1952, the new building was named for Albert R. Mann, the late Dean of the College of Agriculture and University Provost whose unwavering advocacy on the library’s behalf was widely credited for having made the project possible. Over the next half-century, Cornell faculty and students have found within its walls one of the country’s largest and most comprehensive agriculture and life science libraries as well as the laboratories of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium, an important center for research on the world’s plant life and biodiversity. As part of a major American land grant institution, Mann Library has honored a mission to serve the citizens of New York and the wider world in the search for solutions to the pressing problems of our day—from ergonomics to global food security, affordable housing to global climate change.

In line with Gov. Dewey’s prediction, the impact of the investment made in building the original Mann Library has been far-reaching and profound. These pages capture a few highlights of the building’s past sixty years as it has anchored the eastern end of Cornell’s Ag Quad.