The above quote is from Heidi Werntz (Class of 1983). Read the full memory below:

Dear thoughtful historians and Rock 50th birthday party organizers, thank you so much for the opportunity to share these memories:

J.F.K., Jr. (the George Clooney of Brown in the early 1980s) used to study in the Rock sometimes. Once, in passing in the lobby, when he was on his way in and I was on my way out of the Rock, he happened to notice and compliment me on an antique Chinese blue kingfisher feather pin I was wearing that day. It took me by surprise and I beamed in reply. Whenever I have an important meeting, I wear that pin, which has lost most of its feathers by now but is still a nice shape (it had “good bones,” as an art object), and I am instantly transported to Brown and the Rock and my twenties and the possibilities that can develop from a single positive encounter.

My first job after graduation was helping catalogue the East Asian Collection in the Rock. Deep in the center of the library, on the third-floor, surrounded by a metal cage, like a rare exotic bird, was a wonderland of print materials from Asia. I marveled at the beautiful paper, novel binding techniques and well-crafted fabric boxes that enshrined the exquisite materials. My last day of work that summer, I suffered a strange attack: my right side went numb, and I was somehow able to signal the woman I worked for to call for help. I thought I was having a heart attack. When my parents arrived from DC to take me home, they were told that I’d been carried out of the Rock on a stretcher! Well, it turned out to be just a panic attack, the only one I’ve ever had in my life, and to this day I’m sure it was brought on by a “broken heart”—I really didn’t want to leave Brown or my oasis in the Rock!

The above quote is from Ivo Mijnssen (Class of 2005). Read the full memory below:

Not only the availability of books determines the quality of a library but also the availability of comfortable chairs. Especially if you have to read eight-hundred-page-books for history classes or spend days writing research papers, a comfortable chair is essential. The Rock always had the best chairs, but you had to be there early: the most adjustable, most modern and most comfortable chairs in the reading rooms were in high demand. Anyway, I always loved those chairs. And as I would spend weeks working on uncomfortable chairs in Russian archives and libraries during my PhD research phase later on, I really learned to appreciate the privilege of doing my undergraduate research at the Rock.

The above quote is from Alexis Scott (Class of 2004). Read the full memory below:

Oh my dear Rock. I referred to this sweet bastion of knowledge as my “girlfriend” during my time at Brown when I was breathing and reading within its walls as an emerging feminist scholar. I spent time on every floor, deeply titillated by the quiet accumulation of words and thoughts within her walls. I wrote papers that brought me close to mental ecstasy on the second floor, had kissing rendezvous in secret stairwells and ascending elevators, took the perfect sort of naps in the Absolutely Quiet Room, and spread anti-war art on basement concrete. When I was lonely and cold on Providence winter nights, I went to the Rock who would hold me in her knowing arms and tell me that no matter what, there was always something to read and think.

The above quote is from Laurel Geurkink Carignan (Class of 1985). Read the full memory below:

Well, the Rock nearly derailed my Friday night date with my future husband!! I am Laurel Carignan (then Geurkink), Class of ’85. Diligently, I was studying at the Rock on an autumn Friday evening, having promised Bob Carignan (Class of ’84) I would meet him at Phi Delt later. Exhausted from a long week, I managed to fall asleep in a carrell, right through those chimes or whatever they played to tell you to leave. I woke up to find myself nearly one and half hours late for my first date with Bob, panicked because I was locked in. Security finally let me out, and once I got to the Phi Delt bar breathless, I found Bob scowling, sitting on top of the bar, ready to write me off. It was only after explaining my dorkiness (who studies Friday night?) that he calmed down enough to figure I was worth the wait. Thirty happy years later, I think it has all worked out!

The above quote is from Carol Abbott Paymer (Class of 1977). Read the full memory below:

I worked at the Rock as an undergrad. One week, my job was alphabetizing cards from the card catalog. The method was to sort the cards into 26 boxes by 1st letter, then each of those boxes into 26 more boxes by 2nd letter, and so on. When I started, we were 4 letters down in the C’s. Perhaps there were only C’s, or only Ca’s, or only Cam’s. I have no idea. I also have no idea how the cards got out of order in the first place. Maybe someone dropped a drawer.

I think of this every time I hear someone bemoaning the loss of the card catalog system.

The above quote is from John Bruce Taylor (Class of 1965). Read the full memory below:

Before the Rock opened I would get terrible hay fever and had a choice of medicating myself and falling asleep or trying to study for finals while blowing my nose and wiping my eyes.

The air-conditioned Rock allowed me to study in comfort!

The above quote is from Jeff Martin (Class of 2010). Read the full memory below:

I worked hundreds of hours at the carrels on the west side of the library during my time at Brown. I used to watch the sun set over the Providence skyline just about every night. Those were the four most beautiful years of my life.

The above quote is from Alexis V. DiPietro (Class of 1994). Read the full memory below:

The newspaper reading room was always a welcome retreat from hours of study in the carrels. I remember feeling excited and nervous upon entering with hours of work ahead, then leaving late at night to the beautiful view of the quad in the dark evening hours. I loved the collective experience of working at the large tables with classmates.

The above quote is from Kathe Anderson (Class of 1972). Read the full memory below:

I have two Rock stories:
1. For either my birthday or Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend made great big letters and placed one in each window of the Rock to spell out a happy message to me, but for all who entered the library to see.

2. One time, on the first floor, an unlikely-looking library visitor came into the library, seemed to pull a specific book off the shelf, take something from it, replace the book and leave. I’ve often wondered whether the Mafia was passing messages that way!

The above quote is from Richard Minsky (Class of 1970 GS). Read the full memory below:

It was fall, 1968, the week before classes began. I was about to start Graduate School in Economics. Exploring the campus I wandered into the Annmary Brown Memorial, which then housed a collection of some 2,000 incunabula. The bindings hypnotized me, and after a while the curator came out and started a conversation. He sent me to the Rockefeller Library, basement B, to the workshop of Brown’s master bookbinder, Daniel Gibson Knowlton.

It was an amazing studio, and within a few minutes Dan signed me up for his class in the Extension Division. By the end of the first semester I was hooked, and spent most of my time at the Rock, either in the bindery or at a carrel researching my thesis. In June I left with the thesis submitted and several leather bindings completed. Back in New York City I continued in Economics with the Graduate Faculty of The New School, and was awarded a contract to bind books for the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Museum. Putting all that together in 1974 I started a not-for-profit organization named Center for Book Arts, with workshop facilities, classes, and a gallery. One of the first exhibitions was The Bindings of Daniel Gibson Knowlton.

Now the Richard Minsky Archive is at Yale, where a retrospective exhibition was held in 2010, the Center for Book Arts is thriving, its model has been copied by others around the country, and it all started in basement B of the Rock.