Source: [Photos], Mildred Hancock Library Scrapbooks (A-237), East Texas Research Center, Stephen F. Austin State University.

History of the Library

From 1924 to 1926, the library was located in its first home on-campus in the Austin Building at Stephen F. Austin State University. Upon completion of the Rusk Building, the library moved to the third floor of the new building, where it resided for three decades. In the Spring of 1957, the Boynton Building was completed and the library moved to the first building totally dedicated for the library.  The new library was named after the second President of the University, Dr. Paul W. Boynton. It doubled the existing space and provided the first open stack arrangements for general collections.  By the 1960s, the library was once again running out of space to accommodate books and library users. In 1971, Library Director Alvin C. Cage began plans for the new library location in a central part of the campus at SFA. The construction of the new library began in 1972, and in April of 1976, the Board of Regents named the library in honor of Dr. Ralph W. Steen, retiring third President of the University. Dr. Ralph W. Steen had presided over SFA's transition from a small college to a regional university. In response to the honor of the library being named after him, Dr. Ralph W. Steen said, "A great university must have a great library."

Source: [Newspaper Clipping], Vertical File - Steen Library Publicity, newspaper clippings, 1971 - 1987 (Box 8), East Texas Research Center, Stephen F. Austin State University.

Interesting Facts about the Library

• June 15, 1973:
  Ralph W. Steen Library switches from the Dewey Decimal system to the Library of Congress system of referencing books.

• July 10, 1977:
  Ralph W. Steen Library receives Nacogdoches County Chamber of Commerce Beautification Award.

• October 1979:
  Steen Library became one of the first in the nation to move from a card-based cataloging system to a computer-based cataloging system.

• September 15, 1981:
  Steen Library went under construction to fix the problem of falling bricks.

• October 17, 1983:
  The newly remodeled Academic Assistance and Resource Center (AARC) opened.

• October 1989:
  Construction to double the size of the Ralph W. Steen Library began.

• October 13, 1989:
  New system to check out books is implemented. SFA students can check out books from the Nacogdoches Public Library and Nacogdoches Pulic Library users can check out from the SFA Library. The online catalog is updated to display books from the SFA Library and the Nacogdoches Public Library. A courier service of the SFA Library makes trips to pick up books that have been ordered for check out.

• January 29, 1991:
  Renovations to increase the space in the Libary began.  These renovations included: double the amount of seating; increasing the stacks (for collections); enlarging the AARC and dividing it into three separate areas; adding 2 sound-proof listening rooms and more tapes to the Audiovisual (AV) area; increasing the number of study rooms from 3 to 20; adding the large micro-lab called the Library Information Network Center (LINC); a new snack bar near the entrance of the Library.

• August 3, 1991:
  Renovations of the Ralph W. Steen Libary are completed, increasing the Library from 140,000 sq. ft. to 240,000 sq. ft., and now holds more than 1 million volumes.

• Spring 1992:
  The LINC Computer Lab is finally open. It contains 102 more workstations, 2 laser printers, and a classroom for instruction on the computer. Also, shared dot matrix printers (4:1) are at the end of every row of workstations. The shared dot matrix printers would later be removed from the LINC Computer Lab.

• February 28, 1994:
  New computers for the visually-impaired arrive, including a scanner, speech synthesizer, and braille printer.

• April 13, 1995:
  Color Laser printers for the LINC Computer Lab arrive. Cost for a color print set at $1 per page.

• 1995:
  Interlibrary Loan began receiving requests electronically through the library’s web pages and through e-mail.

• 1995:
  Library’s web pages are made available to the Internet community through the Campus Wide Information System (CWIS) moving to the concept of “libraries without walls”.

• 1996:
  Library’s building directory is created in HTML describing services and locations in the library building creating a “clickable” map.

• 1996:
  Library migrates to Windows platform and abandons DOS.

• 1996:
  AARC has a record year of registrations and increase in SI groups and Content Studies Programs.

• 1996:
  LINC computer lab are visited with an outstanding 404,440 people who represented 35 entrances per fte student. Application usage also increases dramatically.

• Fall 1996:
  Electronic reserves implemented in the Fall 1996.

• 1997:
  Barcoding of government documents project is completed with 33,143 items for the online catalog as well as a tape load of MARC records for government documents.

• 1997:
  Library implemented the Information Desk to help students and faculty with computing problems and other informational campus needs.

• 1997:
  East Texas Research Center (ETRC) received the Charles Wilson papers which were under scrutiny by government officials. ETRC also received Charlotte Baker Montgomery’s research materials for several of her books.

• 1998:
  Library of English Literature and Three Centuries of English and American Plays collections on Microforms are cataloged for the online catalog with over 10,166 items.

• 1998:
  AARC had the busiest year in the history of AARC with a 16% increase in registrations and a 27% increase in visits.

• 1998:
  Library survey reveals that the #1 reason for students coming to the library is to use LINC and the #2 reason is to study.

• 1999:
  Addition of the proxy server help remote users of the SFA community to access services that were formally restricted by I.P. address.

• 1999:
  ETRC places finding aids for research collections on the library website.

• 1999:
  Library Systems completed a library wide wiring project to upgrade the library building to category-5 cabling.

• 2000:
  Circulation began selling laser prints and disks.

• 2000:
  Library website went through redevelopment and now offers access to resources via a subject based approach focusing on one of the missions of the library which is to support the curriculum at SFA.

• 2000:
  Library supported Distance Education became more effective through collaboration with the Office of Instructional Technology.

• July 19, 2011:
  George Foreman donates his personal papers, recorded sermons and other documents to the East Texas Research Center in the library.

• September 29, 2011:
  The website for the AARC earned Honorable Mention in the 2011 NCLCA/LSCHE Web Site Excellence Awards competition!