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MICHIGAN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS — BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY
In clear September weather, 1973, the Michigan Historical Collections began its long awaited move from its quarters in the Horace H. Rackham building to the Bentley Historical Library on the University's North Campus. The move represented a combination of many years of expectations and hope in which the splendid body of research materials, assembled since the Collections was started in 1935, could at last have an adequate home.
The seventeen million manuscripts and books plus 14,000 maps were moved with relative ease in the span of one and one-half weeks. By May 2, 1974, when the library was dedicated, the Michigan Historical Collections was well settled into its new quarters designed especially to meet the needs of a modern manuscript library.
Plans for the new facility had been under way since 1965. The architectural firm of Jickling & Lyman, Birmingham, Michigan, made the task of planning a challenging and pleasant one. The principal problem, however, lay not in achieving a workable plan, but in securing the funds necessary to construct the building. The fund raising campaign met with success but also setbacks. It was not until a major gift of $500,000, later increased to $600,000 by Mrs. Alvin M. Bentley, that the new facility was assured.
The first home for the Michigan Historical Collections had been in a single room in the old University Press building on Maynard Street. This was soon followed by the assignment of space in the William L. Clements Library, and, in 1938, the Collections was moved to the Rackham building. In later years, it expanded its original space in the Rackham building and also acquired the storage building at Willow Run Airport in 1958.
At the time of its move the Collections had assembled a well-integrated professional staff of archivists, including in addition to the director and the assistant director, a curator of manuscripts, a curator of printed materials, a reference archivist, an assistant manuscript curator and a field representative. In the two years