This was the library that encompassed me on that day back in 1963, when I first read the article in the New York Times Book Review, and since I wanted to remember it, I did what any other librarian, faculty member, or student would also do. I sat down to a table with several sheets of paper and took meticulous notes. My memories of Weber, and more specifically the library, go back even further to September, 1953, when I first enrolled as a freshman. My class was to be a historic one. We would begin our college careers on the lower campus between 24th and 25th Streets and Adams and Jefferson Avenues. Our sophomore year would be spent in the four small buildings plunked in the middle of farm lands above Harrison and south of 36th Street. I recall registering for my classes in the lobby of the gymnasium, now the Deseret Gym, and then attending an assembly where we were welcomed by John Elzey, the student body president that year. Though not usually rebellious, I ignored his order that all of us were to wear a freshman beanie for the first week of the quarter. In 1953, the library occupied a large, airy, high-ceiling room on the second floor of the Moench Building. Heavy oak tables and chairs filled the center of the room and the book shelves were arranged against the walls on all sides of the room. We students did not realize how fortunate we were to be able to read and study in such old-fashioned surroundings. Because of the high ceilings, noises and whispers wafted away and the large windows let in natural light and fresh air. (Our new library building features low ceilings and track lighting and the windows are constructed so that they can never be opened, thusleaving us at the mercy of erratic heating and air conditioning systems.) From time to time odors that were not entirely fresh found their way into the library. As well as the library, auditoriums, offices, theatre, and classrooms, the Moench Building housed the science laboratories. Chemistry experiments gone awry could send strange smells through the many hallways and staircases into all corners of this quaint old building. Space utilization experts might have condemned the building as poorly designed but the nooks and cubby holes, the many levels and landings all contributed to the warm and relaxed atmosphere of the lower campus. Most of us remember the comradery and sense of community that existed between students, faculty members, and administrators in those years before the summer of 1954 when we packed up the books and furniture and moved up to the four small buildings on the outskirts of town. It seems odd to me that in writing down my memories of Weber State and the library, I find myself easily recalling the early days while the events of the years between are fuzzy and difficult to distinguish. Perhaps my age is showing or perhaps the growth of the library, once we moved into the first and second phases of the Stewart Library, was so rapid that details are difficult to piece together. Certainly I have appreciated the leadership of Craige Hall, our current director, who has so ably managed the library for the last twenty years. Craige is viewed as the best library director in the State not only by the library profession, the faculty, and the administration at Weber State, but more importantly by those of us who have worked for him through those years of growth and transition. I cant adequately express my respect for and my gratitude to Craige Hall. The library now employs 35 people as compared to the half dozen who ran the operation in the early sixties. Our collection numbers over 350,000 as compared to 50,000. As a reference librarian I am able to help our students find detailed information about many hundreds of research topics. Its been exciting to watch the library grow and change and I look forward to new library technologies that are certain to effect future library service at Weber State. However, I must admit that I miss those quieter times when I could remember where nearly every book was shelved and who had checked out which title, when I could mentally keep track of important reference materials and interesting magazine articles, when the relatively few library staff members were more like family than co-workers, when I knew all Weber faculty members on a first name basis, and when I could follow the academic progress of many Weber students. As I watch the students who currently attend Weber State rush from floor to floor in the library trying to amass as much research material as possible in as short a time as possible, I feel some nostalgia for those days before technological advances allowed, perhaps even dictated, huge numbers of research sources. In the sixties, we subscribed to far fewer magazines and journals than we do now, approximately 400 as compared to todays 2,200. However, the 400 included most major research titles of the time while the current 2,200 falls far short the number that our students and faculty members require. In 1965, a library patron could sit down to three or four periodical indexes and abstracts and feel confident about completing a fairly thorough search of available articles. Now several hundred indexes exist, some of them published in competition with each other, some in laser disc format, all vying to include indexing to an ever growing number of periodicals. Todays thorough research project usually requires an online search into at least one national or international database, a procedure that will supply the patron with references to even more publications most of which will not be available in our library and even possibly, within the State. The same information explosion that contributed to great medical and technological advances brings with it frustrations and extra work that student library users of 25 to 30 years ago did not have to meet. I sometimes wonder if the student who collects fifty references, photocopies ten of them and then scans five in order to quote them in a paper, is any better off than students of the last generation who located two thoughtful references and then had time to sit down, read, and take notes about the relevant ideas expressed. I wonder if many students today would have time to locate and recognize a piece of writing that they could continue to refer to for years to come. Perhaps a modified Parkinsons Law might apply to our modern libraries and the students who use them. As the amount of information increases, the amount of time and human patience necessary to understand the information decreases.