University of Texas at Austin. General Libraries

The University of Texas at Austin (UT) was established in 1883, and the next year the UT Library opened quarters in the Old Main Building. During the first decades, the Library acquired the Swante Palm Library and the Bexar Archives, which aided the establishment of the Texas Collection Library and University Archives, respectively. In 1903, the Library was the largest in Texas and 49th among colleges and universities in the entire country. A library building, Battle Hall, was completed in 1911, and the collection tripled in number of volumes from 1912 to 1923. In 1918, the Library acquired the Wrenn Library, which began the Rare Books Collection, and the Genaro Garcia Library, the basis for the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, in 1921.

A library-administration building was completed in 1937, and the manuscripts and archives holdings increased during the 1920s and 1930s, leading to the 1950 establishment of the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, now the Barker Texas History Collection of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. The Library reached one million volumes in 1952 and two million in 1968, and in 1963, the Undergraduate Library was completed. By 1972, the Library had become thirteenth in holdings among the fifty-eight largest research libraries in the United States. The 1958 acquisition of the Parsons Library and several successive collections led to the creation of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in 1972. That same year the UT Library became UT General Libraries, which encompassed numerous libraries and centers on campus. In 1977, the Perry-Castañeda Library was completed, and six years later General Libraries acquired its five millionth book.

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