2009-06-10

On June 12, 2009, the Physics/Astronomy Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will close its doors.  The major part of the collection is being merged into the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center .

The original Physics Library opened in 1909, 100 years ago, in Room 201 of the Laboratory of Physics (now the Materials Science and Engineering Building) with 120 linear feet of shelving space and seating for 29.  It moved to its current home in 204 Loomis Lab in 1959.

The Physics Library was one of the first libraries in the nation to have the unclassified Atomic Energy Commission files.  It housed files on the Betatron — a cyclotron invented at the University of Illinois in 1940 — and continues to support the high-ranking Department of Physics (ranked 8th nationally) and research areas such as Condensed Matter Physics (ranked #1), High Energy Physics and the newly NSF funded Center for the Physics of the Living Cell.  Astronomy was merged into the Physics Library when the Observatory Reading Room was closed in the 1980s.

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).