Seerley Hall (1908)

The book and journal collection gradually grew, professional staff were hired, and in 1894 part of the new Administration Building was designated to serve as a library. However, President Seerley believed the school needed a purpose-built library structure. His case was strengthened by a fire which destroyed 25,000 books at the University of Iowa in 1897. 

Funds became available for campus construction projects from the millage tax, a statewide levy on real estate. The Board of Directors considered locations for a new library building. The first campus plan, produced in 1905, tentatively placed the library southeast of what is now Lang Hall. The octagonal building would be a campus showpiece. However, both the design and location were ultimately discarded, and the octagonal library became one of the campus phantom facilities.

In 1906, the Board of Directors authorized a month-long trip for President Seerley to survey libraries in other parts of the country. In 1907, the Iowa General Assembly authorized the expenditure of as much as $175,000 for a new library building. The building would also include quarters for the museum and natural history specimens. The Board of Directors decided to locate the new library on the southeast corner of the developing campus quadrangle. Architects Proudfoot and Bird, designers of Lang Hall, also designed this building. Construction began in late 1907, although the cornerstone was dated 1908.

The new Library opened on May 2, 1911. It rained on moving day, so books had to be carried through the utility tunnel between the Old Administration Building and the Library. A formal dedication was held on May 18, 1911, in conjunction with the Spring Music Festival. President Seerley said the opening of the new Library was "the most important improvement at the Teachers College in the past twenty years." The new building showcased a neoclassical architectural style, marble flooring and large reading room. 

Once the Library was built, President Seerley continued his support of the collections and facilities. In 1921, shelving was added which doubled capacity of the book storage area. President Seerley's acquisitions allocations exceeded the total supplies and equipment for all the instructional departments combined. 

At the end of World War I, the Board decided to decorate the walls of the Library reading room. Board member E.P. Schoentgen approached William de Leftwich Dodge, a well-known artist from New York, about painting murals for the room. For a fee of $5,000, Dodge painted two large 12x 40 foot allegorical murals, "Education" and "In Memoriam." They were painted in his Long Island, New York, studio, shipped in pieces to Cedar Falls, and installed in September 1920. The first, "Education,"was mounted on the south wall and attempted to portray the value of the Teachers College mission. The second, "In Memoriam," was mounted on the north wall and evoked memories of World War I, in which many Teachers College faculty, students and alumni had served. The Board then commissioned Dodge with a $10,000 fee to produce more murals for the west wall of the reading room. By September 1921, Dodge had completed three new panels: "Agriculture," "The Council of Indians," and "The Commonwealth.”

In addition to the growing book collection and the murals, the Library included sheet music, children's books, museum displays and prints of artwork. Head librarian Anne Stuart Duncan developed the idea of using the lower hall in the Library as an art gallery. There she displayed several hundred reproductions of "the best in art of all nations and all ages" as part of an effort "to bring the treasures of art to every student in school."

The Library was a popular location for students, although conflicts between studying and socializing were often covered in the student newspaper. In 1914, the College Eye printed a parody of James Whitcomb Riley's "Little Orphan Annie":

"When you're a-fooling in the library, a-havin' lots of fun,
A-laughing and a-gibbering as if your time had come,
You'd better watch your corners and keep kinder looking out
Er the librarians'll get you if you don't watch out."

Duncan said in 1929 that "the Library is most popular in the evening from seven to nine o'clock. But what percentage of the students is there to study is uncertain." The College Eye reporter who interviewed Duncan jokingly suggested students who entered the Library might be required to actually have a book in front of them, or perhaps evening hours might be limited to upperclassmen. In 1930, the College Eye recounted an overheard conversation. One student asked a friend if she were going to the Library that night. The friend replied, "No, I have to study tonight." 

In 1930, the Library established a documents room with about 10,000 volumes of federal, state and municipal documents. In 1931, a new women's lounge opened near the north entrance. This was a "suitable place for the young ladies who wish to rest, to chat, or to powder their noses before proceeding to the reading rooms." Also in 1931, the Library received new window sashes on the east side. However, the windows were decorative and did not open. They provided no ventilation for the reading room, which could be hot during warm weather. The College Eye reported one enterprising student, Anna Mae Sander, brought her own electric fan to the reading room during summer 1936.

As early as 1940, with air conditioning available in many theaters, lunch counters and dime stores, student Katharine Schaffert called for the installation of an air conditioning system in the Library. She concluded her letter to the College Eye: "Our state would harvest rich dividends in greater efficiency in teaching if a little more were invested in the health and welfare of its teachers in summer school." After President Malcolm Price walked through the reading room in summer 1941, large electric floor fans were installed.

When the Library opened in 1911, the book stacks were closed and patrons had to place a request for a book at the service desk. In 1944, students began to ask if the stacks could be open for browsing. In 1945, the horseshoe-shaped reading room desk was replaced by a simpler, more functional desk. Circulation librarian Evelyn Mullins believed the new desk would speed up and simplify service. The Library also installed a book return in a slot in the north door.

In 1949, the Library undertook a major moving project. Periodicals went to the first level, and education and fiction books went to the second floor. About one-third of the students and faculty helped with the move. Also in 1949, new steps were installed on the south and east sides of the Library.

When Donald O. Rod became head librarian in 1953, the Library began to undergo a series of changes, some to improve conditions and service, and others in anticipation of a new building. The Library added microfilm of the Des Moines Register and New York Times to its collections and made changes in reserve book circulation policies in 1954. Rod also increased security by placing periodicals in view of a service desk and requiring identification cards for checking out library material. In 1959, to combat the continuing problem of theft, the Library instituted a checkpoint system through which everyone had to pass when they left the building. In 1956, large ceiling exhaust fans were installed over the stacks. In 1957, the tunnel leading from the Old Administration Building to the Library, which had been closed due to its weakened condition, was filled in. 

By 1956, officials were planning to build a new library and convert the old Library into a classroom building. In 1961, with plans for a new library underway, officials began considering a new name for the building. 

Registrar Marshall Beard suggested naming it in honor of President Homer Seerley. Seerley’s name had already been given to Seerley Hall for Men (later part of Baker Hall) in 1937, but Beard believed a more significant building should bear his name. In summer 1961, the Board of Regents approved the recommendation to name the old Library in honor of President Seerley as soon as library services ceased there. The name officially changed to Seerley Hall in January 1964.

In 1962, the Regents requested a remodeling budget of $450,000. The project would include construction of business education classrooms and offices, fire safety modifications, and air conditioning. In January 1964, the Regents approved $385,500 for the Seerley Hall remodeling project.

With the new library (now Rod Library) about to open, the Museum, located on the fourth floor of Seerley Hall, opened for one last time on the evening of July 15, 1964. Plans called for the Museum to close for a year and then to re-open in the Seerley Hall reading room. It would be located there until new quarters could be established in a free-standing building, or a wing of the new Science Building. However, plans changed following the fire which destroyed Central Hall on July 22, 1965. To compensate for classrooms lost in the fire, the Regents and college officials decided it would be better to convert existing facilities into classrooms than to build a new classroom and office building. In order to divide the large reading room into smaller spaces, work crews took down and put into storage the Dodge mural mounted on the west wall. The Museum collection was eventually shifted to the Physical Plant building west of Hudson Road.

Books were moved from Seerley Hall to the new Library in August 1964. In fall 1964, Physical Plant Director Melvin Manion reviewed remodeling plans for Seerley Hall with the hope work could get underway soon and possibly be completed by September 1965. By April 1965, construction crews were at work on a new staircase on the northwest corner of the building.

Most of the building, with the exception of the partitioned former reading room, was ready for classes for the fall 1965. The ground floor contained 20 faculty offices as well as the office of the Department of Business and Business Education. Data processing equipment and classrooms occupied the second floor. The third floor contained classrooms; fourth floor contained a secretarial suite and a model office. However, this remodeling project inadequately prepared the building for the significant increase of business students in the 1970s and 1980s. With most classes such as accounting, finance, marketing and management held in Seerley Hall, space was a struggle. Administrators also attempted to fit developing computer technology into the structure. In fall 1990, the Curris Business Building opened and classes were moved to the new building.

In July 1990, the Board of Regents approved a $279,000 contract with the Waterloo architectural firm of Thorson, Brom, Broshar, and Snyder to design a $4.7 million renovation project for Seerley Hall. The plans called for designing space for departments in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. By September 1990, plans had become more specific: Seerley Hall would house the Department of History, the Graduate College, and the Public Policy program, as well as classrooms and offices. The reading room and murals would be restored to serve as a site for special meetings and receptions.

Architect Robert Broshar and facilities planning staff members Lee Thomson and Morris Mikkelsen presented schematic plans for the Seerley Hall renovation to the Board of Regents on June 19, 1991. Funding for the project would come from the sale of academic revenue bonds authorized by the General Assembly. The target completion date was set for spring 1993. During this project, Seerley Hall was stripped down to its brick vaulted structural elements, the first time a significant building on the UNI campus would be renovated to this level.

The building re-opened in 1993. At the re-dedication ceremony on September 8, 1993, Professor William C. Lang spoke on the history of the building and Homer Seerley. Homer Culley, a grandson of President Seerley who had been born in the President's House in 1915, attended the ceremony.

Alleen Howard, widow of Professor Donald Howard, donated funds for a history seminar room named Howard's honor. It was dedicated on November 9, 1994. In 1996, the university celebrated its 120th anniversary with a display of photographs, artifacts and text mounted in the reading room by Professor Joanne Goldman's public history students. In 2001, the Office of the President and Office of the Vice President and Provost moved from Gilchrist Hall to Seerley Hall, and the Graduate College moved from Seerley Hall to the newly-restored Lang Hall.