First Head Librarian | 1945–66
Marjorie Keenleyside walked out of the Central YMCA College with Sparling and started the Roosevelt library from scratch. In its first semester, the library had two orange crates, a folding table, a chair and a typewriter for furniture. “Our folding chairs squeak, but they hold our students,” she said. “Our tables are nothing but sawed-off clothing racks, but they provide writing space.” Keenleyside added 48,000 volumes to Roosevelt’s collection by 1949.