Library East

About this property

Smathers Library (previously known as Library East) is a historic library in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is located in the northeastern section of the University of Florida in the middle of the Campus Historic District. When it was first created it was the largest building on campus at that time. It is a part of the George A. Smathers Libraries system and home to multiple collections of books and other library materials. This facility was designed by the architect William A. Edwards and was first opened in October 1926. A major addition was designed by Florida Board of Control Architect Guy Fulton following World War II. On June 27, 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. In 1991 after a generous donation by the former United States Senator George Smathers the facility was officially renamed the Smathers Library. The Map & Imagery Library makes up a portion of the ground floor of the Smathers Library. It consists of several different collections which, combined, contain roughly 500,000 maps, 300,000 aerial photographs and satellite images, 8,000 atlases and reference books and an increasing number of geospatial datasets. It is one of largest academic map libraries in the United States. It specializes in content concerning Florida, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa and is open to the public every weekday. The second floor of Smathers Library is home to the Special Collections Grand Reading Room. This space provides the primary source of access to many of the George A. Smathers Libraries' Special Collections materials. As many of the materials within these collections are not available to be checked out or loaned, any person interested in viewing them must do so in the Grand Reading Room, under the supervision of library staff. Collections which can be accessed through the Grand Reading Room include, but are not limited to, the University Archives, the Architecture Archives, the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, the Manuscript Collection, the Popular Culture Collections and the Rare Books Collections. In 1953, a UF Art Department faculty member Hollis Holbrook created a mural for the Grand Reading Room titled “History of Learning in Florida.” It is over 600 square feet and was created using egg tempera over several layers of sanded gesso directly on the wall over a period of about three months. “History of Learning in Florida” depicts education in Florida. In the lower left corner, there is a portion on learning from contact and trade. The central image is a figure with the tree of life or knowledge. In the lower portion, there is a self-portrait of Holbrook holding a copy of the East Florida Gazette, the first newspaper published in Florida. Former library director, Stanley West, is pictured on Holbrook's right. There is also a scene featuring a celebration of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, picturing an African American Man voting alongside a white man. When asked about the mural, Holbrook said “the colors and the way it relates to the room are most important.”

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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