Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library

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Interior, Firestone Library.

The Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library, named after the man who founded the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, is the main library at Princeton University. It first opened in 1948, as the first large American university library constructed after World War II. Roughly 1.5 million volumes were moved during the summer of 1948 from East Pyne Hall, which until then served as the University's main library. The library was expanded in 1971 and again in 1988 and currently has over 50 miles of bookshelves.

The building itself does not appear very large from outside, because most of its books are stored in one of the three partly-underground levels that extend beyond the footprint of the main building. Firestone has four smaller above-ground floors, the second and fourth of which are accessible only to library staff. Princeton's book collection has outgrown Firestone's present capacity and two annexes in the Princeton University Forrestal campus are used to store volumes and materials that are less frequently used.

Though Firestone is not the largest university library in the world, Princeton librarians will boast that Firestone has the most books per student compared to any other university in the country. Firestone is one of the largest open stack libraries in existence.

The library contains many study spaces, most prominently the Trustees Room (an open study space bounded on one side by glass panels containing the names of all present and past university trustees and presidents) and the atrium seen in the picture on the right. It also has hundreds of carrels, offices about the size of a large closet, that are reserved for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate seniors working on their theses.

In addition, the library has a social science reference center and a reserved books area, and many departments have their own private seminar and study rooms. The University's interlibrary loan services and most staff librarians have offices in Firestone.