The Significance of the Joint University Libraries

TH E DEDICATION of a new library building to serve the students and scholars of a great modern university is always an occasion for special ceremonial. And well it should be. It marks the addition to the varied resources of the university of a new, carefully planned building set apart to aid the university in achieving the ends for which the university has been established and maintained by society. It tremendously reinforces the university's efforts to conserve and revitalize knowledge and ideas from the past, to discover new knowledge and develop new ideas, and to pass this cumulated heritage on to succeeding generations through instruction, publication, and public service. It signalizes the supplementation of old forces and the release of new forces within society which inevitably contribute to its increasing understanding and cultural enrichment.