William Henry Miller designed Boardman Hall as well as structures such as Uris Library with the McGraw Tower, A.D. White House, and numerous other local buildings. Upon its completion in 1892 it housed the College of Law and the Departments of History and Government after the College of Law transferred to Myron Taylor Hall in 1931. In 1958-59, Boardman Hall was torn down to make room for the new research library.It took seven years of planning and $5.7 million to build Olin Library, the first library specifically designed as a research facility. In the words of Anne R. Kenney, former Carl A. Kroch University Librarian: “Although there were critics of the new building, dubbed a ‘vulgar modernization’ by the former dean of architecture, it became extremely popular…Today Olin remains a vital place for research and study, with between 3,000 and 11,000 visitors a day at peak academic times. The mind boggles at what the next 50 years will bring, but I’m betting Olin Library will still be a place that draws those who value the life of the mind.”

Before the map collection moved to Olin Library in 1961, the Library held 46,000 maps crammed into very small spaces in the “Main” (now Uris) Library. Today, the Maps and Geospatial Information Collection is housed in the Map Room, located on the lower level of Olin Library. Currently, there are nearly 400,000 maps, 3,200 books and atlases, 500 CD-ROMS, databases, and other digital materials in the collection. The images below show the Map Room then... and now.