Storyline · 1983–1992
UNC's library marked its three millionth volume in 1983, but from 1989 rising prices and state budget cuts forced it to cancel journals, shorten hours and buy fewer than half the books it had bought in 1984-85, and its rankings fell. Chancellor Hardin named a task force in 1990, and seniors, parents, Walter Royal Davis and other donors gave money for books.
At the University Day convocation on October 12, 1983, the University library celebrated its three millionth volume, part of a collection of 300 rare books printed by the Estienne family and given by the John Wesley and Anna Hodgin Hanes Foundation for the Study of the Origin and Development of the Book.
By the end of August 1989 library officials said funding had risen 4 percent since 1986-87 while subscription prices rose 28.4 percent and book prices 22 percent. Departments had canceled $60,000 in journals and marked $80,000 more for possible cuts. In March 1990 Assistant University Librarian Larry Alford said the libraries had canceled 1,000 serial subscriptions in research areas since 1988 and had slipped from 10th in 1985-86 to 27th in 1988-89 among research libraries in spending on books, and needed about $1.8 million more a year to regain their 1984-85 buying power. In 1989-90 the library bought fewer than 36,000 books and single publications, against 81,000 in 1984-85.
On October 12, 1990, as budget cuts canceled serials and shortened hours, Chancellor Paul Hardin told the Faculty Council he was setting up a task force to study the problems of all three University libraries: academic affairs, health affairs and law. With 25 library positions held open, the Panhellenic Council gave $1,000 in sorority rush fines, which kept Davis Library open until midnight Monday through Thursday from November 1.
By January 1991 the National Endowment for the Humanities had offered the Academic Affairs Library a $750,000 challenge grant if it raised $3 million in private gifts. In February the Association of Research Libraries ranked UNC's library system 20th, down from 13th in 1984; University Librarian James Govan blamed state budget cuts, and Alford said UNC had fallen to 51st in spending on books. Seniors pledged more than $355,000 from February 17 to 19 as the Class of 1991's gift, an endowment for undergraduate research materials and technology at Davis Library. A mail appeal to parents begun in December 1990 had brought in more than $117,000 by early March, which Hardin put in a fund to restore cut hours and buy materials. By late October Walter Royal Davis, for whom Davis Library is named, designated $490,000 from two endowments he had set up to buy books.
In February 1992 the library's administrative board reported that the library had bought 36,364 books in the past year against 81,489 in 1984-85 and had drawn up a 10 percent periodicals cancellation list for the tenth time in ten years; board chairman John Nadas warned that it was very close to the point of no return. The annual report issued November 1 showed the serials budget ($1,570,740) nearly three times the book budget ($542,101), and Govan said UNC's standing as a national research library had fallen from 10th to 48th. On December 8 senior class president Bob Paty announced that the Class of 1993 would raise $365,000 over five years for the library endowment, with more than $90,000 in NEH matching money; the library had canceled more than 2,000 periodical subscriptions. The next day, at a reception for the retiring Govan, the Hanes Foundation presented the four-millionth volume, a 1678 edition of Anne Bradstreet's poems, and an alumnus announced a $1,066,000 trust for a Thomas Wolfe Library Fund, which Hardin called the largest gift ever given to the library.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.
People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Louis Round Wilson's 40-page review of the University of North Carolina library, subtitled on the cover a review of its past and a look at its future. Wilson had directed the library for three decades before leaving for Chicago, and the university's main library carries his name. Published by the University of North Carolina Library in Chapel Hill in 1960, with illustrations.
Judith M. Panitch's illustrated account of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library between 1992 and 2004, published by the library in 2004. It is a history of the academic library, and the notes point out its references to the Aldo P. Magi collection of Thomas Wolfe material. 50 pages with color illustrations in an oblong format.
Edward G. Holley's twelfth Hanes Lecture, given in Wilson Library on 11 April 1995, on how the library, philanthropy and publishing helped the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill become a major American university. Printed by the Hanes Foundation, 28 pages.
Exhibition booklet from the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published in 1996, recording the benefactors whose gifts built the collection and the items they gave. The cover reads Selections from the Rare Book Collection, and Henry Pearson, 1914 to 2006, is among the people it covers. 32 pages with illustrations.
Daniel W. Barefoot arranges first-hand recollections of the University of North Carolina by decade, from the 'infant university' of the 1790s through the Civil War years when promise turned to despair, the rebuilding of the 1870s, the 'frosh' life of the 1880s, wartime fame in the 1940s, the controversies of the 1960s and the bicentennial of the 1990s. Thomas Wolfe's student years appear among the voices. Published by John F. Blair of Winston-Salem in 2008, 257 pages.
Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.
Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.
Jean Bolduc's collection of oral history interviews with Black residents of Durham and Orange counties, published by The History Press in 2016, 125 pages with photographs and portraits. The narrators are the poet Jaki Shelton Green, civil rights lawyer Floyd McKissick, Walter Jackson, Nate Davis, Brenda Stephens, Diane Wright, Jackie Wagstaff and Michelle Johnson, and a closing chapter deals with the Ku Klux Klan. The interviews document Black life and race relations in the two counties across the twentieth century.
A handbook to the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, published by the museum in 1983 for its twenty-fifth anniversary. It combines a catalog of the collection with a history of the museum, which opened in 1958. Includes a bibliography on pages xviii to xx. 170 pages with illustrations, 22 cm.
History of the first 75 years of the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, produced by the school in 2007. Includes a chronology of the school, biographical sketches of its deans and a register of alumni. Printed by PhotoBook Press of Minneapolis, 119 pages with illustrations, some in color.
The papers of Willie Person Mangum, 1792 to 1861, a lawyer, judge and United States senator from the part of Orange County that later became Durham County. Five volumes of correspondence published by the State Department of Archives and History beginning in 1950, arranged by date from 1807 to 1894, with illustrations, portraits and folding maps. A source for antebellum North Carolina and national politics, the Whig Party and the Mangum family.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1951), Journal of American History (1951), The Journal of Southern History (1953), Journal of American History (1953), The Journal of Southern History (1954), The Journal of Southern History (1955), The Journal of Southern History (1957), Journal of American History (1957), The American Historical Review (1957).
Willis P. Whichard's biography of David Lowry Swain, governor of North Carolina from 1832 to 1835 and president of the University of North Carolina from 1835 until his death in 1868. The subtitle ties Swain, nineteenth-century North Carolina and the university together, and the book belongs with the lives of college presidents and governors. Published in 2022.
Jean Bolduc's 2016 collection of interviews with African American residents of Durham and Orange counties, presented as short biographies. The subjects are Floyd McKissick (1922-1991), the first African American admitted to UNC's law school, Walter Jackson, Brenda Stephens, Nate Davis, poet Jaki Shelton Green, Jackie Wagstaff, Diane Wright and Michelle Johnson, with a closing chapter on the Ku Klux Klan. 125 pages with illustrations.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “UNC’s libraries in the budget squeeze, 1983–1992.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/unc-libraries-budget-storyline-1983/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
