This past year, Farmingdale State College’s (FSC) Greenley Library celebrated its golden anniversary. Fifty years ago, the four-floor brick-faced building that saliently stands between Hale Hall and Bunche Plaza officially opened its doors to the FSC campus community. Richard Nixon was U.S. president and Charles W. Laffin, Jr. was FSC president, a gallon of gas cost 40 cents, “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight & the Pips was Billboard’s number one song, and the handheld cordless phone, which weighed over two pounds, had just been invented.
Before its opening, FSC’s library had many locations over the years, including Thompson Hall and Whitman Hall, where it occupied both floors of the southwest wing. “When the library moved, the staff brought books in shelf-list order from Whitman to Greenley on carts,” said Karen Gelles, who has been FSC’s library director since 2017.
Greenley Library is named after Thomas D. Greenley, Sr. (December 14, 1905–September 1, 1971), a painter, printmaker, muralist, and illustrator, who was a beloved member of FSC’s faculty for over two decades. Greenley was a devoted member of FSC’s Library Committee and worked to improve its art collection. Several of his works can still be viewed on campus, including a large painting in Delores Quintyne Hall.
“It is fitting that the cultural and intellectual center of our campus is named to honor an artist and scholar,” noted a former colleague of Greenley.
Over the last half-century, Greenley Library has seen many upgrades and improvements, including a major building-wide renovation completed in early 2015.
Check Out
These Greenley
Library Facts:
- The most frequently checked out items include laptops, bones, muscles, and teeth.
- Greenley Library has housed many things over the past 50 years, including a production studio used for courses broadcast on local television.
- A large-format poster printer is available to students and staff at affordable rates.
- Special collections include many items from the 1800s, and the College Archives house thousands of photographs from FSC's early history.
“In the pre-internet era the reference books were much more heavily used and deserved a prime location, but the stacks blocked the beautiful windows,” said Gelles. “By moving our reference collection to the edges of the floor we opened up the space, making the entire main level much brighter and more inviting. The usage of the facility has exploded since then, with students filling every table and seating area during our peak hours,” she added.
Today, Greenley Library embraces an “information commons” model housing over 70,000 books and multiple student support centers, programs, and departments, including FSC’s Center for Academic Success & Tutoring (CAST), Research Aligned Mentorship (RAM) Program, and Nexus Center for Applied Learning & Career Development. It also offers an enormous collection of digital resources including eBooks, eJournals, and videos. “Like most libraries, Greenley’s collections have moved increasingly toward digital resources in the past 25 years,” said Gelles.
But throughout its long history, Greenley Library’s most valuable resource has been its staff. “The 50th anniversary of the building is a fun time to celebrate the facility, but without the staff and the services they provide, it’s just a building,” she said. “Greenley has always been a place students could go to find information or to get help from library staff, and that tradition continues.”
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