Page 2 - Windows Newsletter Spring 2016

TCU
LIBRARY
FEATURES
4 Message from the Dean
5 TCU Students Love the Library
6 Love Letters
Special Collections Exhibit
7 TCU Press
Honors & New Releases
8 An Evening of Great Conversation
An evening of serious fun
2 TCU Library
A GENTLER KIND OF PROTEST
As 1960s sit-ins rose in popularity, TCU was
home to a sit-out
by Marcia Melton, TCU Magazine, Winter 2016
The renovated Mary Couts Burnett Library offers state-
of-the-art facilities almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
But this kind of access to the library wasn’t always the case,
especially on weekends
On the lawn outside the library in February 1963, a group of
students gathered to protest. It wasn’t a march and it wasn’t a
sit-in. It was a sit-out.
Many students, especially those who worked while attending
classes, had lobbied the library staff for open hours on
Sundays. A 1962 TCU Skiff article titled, “Never on Sunday”
remarked that, “Sunday, despite the Christian tradition, usually
is not a day of rest for students...It could be an excellent day for
research and other library work.”
Students also reminded university administration that other
Southwest Conference schools had regular Sunday library
hours. At first, administrators were unmoved, claiming that
Sunday hours would stretch the budget and students wouldn’t
use the library on Sundays anyway. But, in the fall semester of
1962, the library had opened on two Sundays from 2 to 6 p.m.
By the beginning of the next spring semester, students were
again agitating for Sunday openings.
10 TCU Texas Book Award On that Sunday afternoon in 1963, a group of students took
the next step. With their protest signs, they gathered books and
papers, and “sat out” on the lawn around the library.
12 Joyce Pate Capper Receives Order of the
Crown Oak “If the Library were open, we’d be inside,” read several signs.
One sign, posted on the (locked) front doors of the library
13 Library Aquires Manuscript Diary of stated: “This door is our education to closed.”
Sarah Bowdoin Dearborn
The 1963 Horned Frog described the event this way: “Not a shot
14 #DearWorld was fired. Not a battle cry was heard. But it was still a revolt.”
Students, faculty and staff share personal
messages through photo portraits The library committee finally agreed to schedule regular Sunday
hours. Starting in the fall of 1963, it opened on Sundays. The
Koelker and TCU Magazine next year, the library committee included students as members
15 A Gentler Kind of Protest for the first time.
As 1960s sit-ins rse in popularity, TCU was
home to a sit-out
In the early 1960s, students successfully lobbied for Sunday library hours and seats on the library’s policy committee.
Spring 2016 15