:: History Site Index
:: Historical Overview
:: Timeline of Events
:: Hall of Presidents

:: USF Site & Name
:: John Allen Legacy
:: 40 Years of Memories
:: Named Buildings & Sites
:: Medical School History
:: Medicine's 1st 25 years
:: Marshall Center History
:: Early Women's Athletics
:: Student Trends
:: Snow at USF!

:: 1st Student
:: 1st Professor
:: 1st Basketball Team
:: 1st Football Team
:: 1st Marching Band
:: 1st Years of The Oracle
:: 1st Trustees

:: USF Sarasota/Manatee
:: USF St Petersburg
:: USF Lakeland

:: Traditions Overview
:: Alma Mater
:: Academic Mace
:: USF Seal & Symbols

:: Rocky the Bull
:: Herd of Thunder

:: Homecoming
:: Student Gov. Ceremony
:: Bull Market
:: Movies On The Lawn
:: "Go Bulls" Hand Symbol
:: Retired Athletic Jerseys

Growing by the Book - 40 Years of Memories

"The first year there were no funds to buy books," recalls Mary Lou Harkness, USF's former library director. Harkness arrived at the university on June 1, 1958. A young catalog librarian, she joined President John Allen, his secretary Ann Strikland and library director Elliot Hardaway and became USF's fourth employee.

"He (Hardaway) knew librarians all over the Southeast. He called libraries and local people looking for discards, duplicates and donations. One thing we always did get plenty of was National Geographics. Everybody saved their National Geographics."

The library was as homeless as it was bookless. The books were catalogued and stored in an old house in Hyde Park on 2489 Plant Avenue, which has since been plowed under into a parking lot. The library staff worked out of a three-bedroom house on campus, that later became the campus police station.

"Those of us who were here in the 'little house days' used to play badminton and volleyball and have picnics on our lunch hours."

When the students finally arrived, the library was temporarily housed in the UC Ballroom.

"Those poor, beautiful floors took such a beating," says Harkness with a sigh. In 1961, USF's first library was completed where the Student Service Building stands today. It was built to hold 250,000 volumes.

Harkness was named library director in 1967. Hardaway had been promoted to dean of Instructional Services. By the early '70s the library was stuffed to the rafters with more than 400,000 volumes. In the summer of '75 the library moved, once more, to its current location.

It was around this time that computers began making an appearance in libraries. After a few false starts, the State University System started a statewide automated system, the Florida Center for Library Automation. In the 1980s Harkness brought in the library's current LUIS system. "It was a state-of-the-art contemporary system. It was fully operational by 1987."

After the LUIS installation, Harkness decided to step down.

"I went from the print library, where the card catalog was the information data base, into this new world. The Library was moving in a new direction. It was time." New library director Sam Fustukjian drove the library into cyberspace. Harkness retired in 1991 as USF's first 30-year retiree. After a year off, she came back to work in the library for three more years. Back to her beginnings as a catalog librarian.

(1996)

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