Records of the Colorado State University Libraries

Colorado Agricultural College (now Colorado State University) established a college library soon after opening. A room in the Main Building was set aside and funding from the State Board of Agriculture and student fees were used to purchase magazines, newspapers, reports from land-grant colleges, and technical bulletins in the agricultural sciences. In March 1880, the faculty authorized the hiring of a librarian to oversee the collection. For many years, the person holding this position was not a trained librarian, but a family member of a college administrator. In 1893, Annie L. Jones bequeathed to the college a fund to purchase books. Then college president Alston Ellis used the funds to purchase general literature and books in the areas of history, travel, poetry, and biographies.

Joseph F. Daniels was hired as librarian in 1901, after serving for five years as the librarian for the State Normal School. Beginning in 1904, the library at CAC was designated a depository library for federal government publications. Daniels spent many hours gathering current and historical government publications, as well as books related to the courses offered at the college, including agriculture, engineering, domestic science, and public health. The growing library moved out of the Main Building in 1905 into its own building (currently Laurel Hall), though the veterinary sciences department laboratory was in the basement.

Charlotte Baker became the college librarian in 1910. Coming to CAC in 1906 as the assistant to Daniels, she served as librarian for thirty years. During her tenure, an addition was made to the library in 1915 doubling its space, and she helped plan a new library building on the west side of the oval during the late 1920s. Noting a lack of training for many librarians in small towns and rural areas across the state, Baker began a summer library school at CAC in 1919 and ran the successful program until 1932 when the University of Denver instituted a degree granting program.

The new library building on the Oval (now the TILT building) was completed in 1928. After years of growth, especially the rapid expansion of the college after World War II, the library was too small to support all the departments on campus. Library director James Hodgson and his successor, LeMoyne Anderson, created a network of branch libraries to ease the pressure on the main library.

Beginning in the early 1960s, planning and construction of a new centralized library was initiated. The William E. Morgan Library opened in 1965, giving the university a large enough space to close all the branch libraries and increase holdings in areas such as the liberal arts and social sciences. Soon after construction, Morgan Library was filled to capacity and branch libraries were again established: an engineering branch in 1974, a veterinary medicine branch in 1979, and an atmospheric science branch in 1984. A book storage facility was constructed in 1984 to house the ever growing collection until the expansion of the library in 1995. The expanded library would go from 150,000 to 259,000 square feet and compact shelving was installed in the basement level to increase storage capacity.

On July 28, 1997, a severe thunderstorm hit Fort Collins producing between 5 and 10 inches of rain, depending on location, in six hours. Colorado State University was heavily impacted by the resulting flood waters. Thirty buildings sustained damage, including Morgan Library. A low lying area on the west side of the library allowed water to build up against a temporary plywood construction wall. When the wooden wall collapsed water flowed into the basement of the library, rapidly rising to the 10 foot ceiling and submerging the book collection, a computer lab, staff offices, and other areas. The basement housed all of the bound periodical collection and part of the book collection, specifically social science, humanities, and science related publications, totaling approximately 430,000 volumes.

Construction activities on the library expansion and flood recovery took until 1998 to complete. Another major renovation took place in 2011, along with the creation of a new wing on the Book Storage Facility on Lake Street to ease in volume storage in the library. Currently, Morgan Library offers expansive seating for studying, a 24-7 study space, collaborative group learning spaces, computer labs, Internet video conference rooms and classrooms, quiet study areas, and offers access to over two million books and journals.