Your Princeton University Library headquarters, Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library, holds more than 7 million books. Here the university's main library system keeps more than 7 million books, 6 million microforms, and 48,000 linear feet of manuscripts — holdings that place it among the largest libraries in the world by number of volumes. Firestone opened in 1948 as the first large American university library constructed after World War II.
Designed by Robert B. O'Connor and Walter H. Kilham Jr., it received roughly 1.5 million volumes moved during the summer of 1948 from East Pyne Hall, which until then had served as the University's main library. The building was expanded in 1971 and again in 1988, and today contains more than 70 miles (110 km) of bookshelves, making Firestone one of the largest open-stack libraries in existence. The library system is also part of the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium, or ReCAP, alongside Columbia Libraries, Harvard Library, and New York Public Library.
Picture those millions of items shifting through the summer moves and later expansions, then notice the Firestone facade and the university grounds beyond it.