Columbia's "Special Collections"                      21

porary measure, of course, for in 1930 plans were already well
under way for Columbia's new library. South Hall (later re¬
named Butler Library), and it was planned that Low would
eventually serve as the University's rare-book library. Accord¬
ingly, in September, 1934, rooms in Low became available, and
in due course (1938) the Plimpton, Smith, and Dale collections
were installed in Room 210 Low, where Columbiana is now
housed. Special Collections—as the department had come to
be styled—occupied nearby rooms on the first and second floors,
with its stack area on the fourth floor. Dr. Lehmann-Haupt
decided to give his full time to teaching in the Library School,
and Mr. Charles Adams was appointed to the chief librarianship
of the department.

It was now officially supposed that Special Collections had
acquired its permanent location. Low Memorial Library, in
which, with the removal of the general collections to Butler,
there seemed to be virtually limitless space for growth. Plans
were formulated for refurbishing the interior in keeping with
this new function, including full air-conditioning. But all this
was based on pre-war conceptions—conceptions that were per¬
force abandoned as the inexorable expansion of the University's
educational, research, and administrative structure began to
develop during the early postwar period. A reassignment of Low
Library space became a necessity, and although Butler Library
had been constructed on the specific understanding that the
housing and service of rare books and manuscripts were not to
be among its functions, the feeling began to grow that Special
Collections must ultimately be located there.

There were many reasons for that feeling, quite apart from
the need for the reassignment of Low space. Chief among them
was the fact that, as the passing years brought deeper experience,
it had become apparent that the full usefulness of the rich
resources in Special Collections could not be realized at so great
a distance from the main collections and records in Butler. There