The Homer D. Babbidge Library is the main library on the University of Connecticut

University of Connecticut

The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...

 campus.

History

In December 1962 University of Connecticut

University of Connecticut

The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...

 President Homer D. Babbidge went before the Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 legislature

Legislature

A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

 to advocate for a stronger research-oriented institution

Research institute

A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research...

 in Storrs, CT

Storrs, Connecticut

Storrs is a census-designated place and part of the town of Mansfield, Connecticut located in eastern Tolland County. The population was 10,996 at the 2000 census...

. Even when compared to its peers; UConn spent less on bookbinding

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

, periodicals, collections development, and had an overall smaller inventory of books. UConn spent $30 per student on the library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

 at a time when its peers were spending close to $70. Only ten years later, near the end of his term, the University's library passed the one million volume mark; joining only 58 other American Universities (out of 2,200 total) that had a collection of 1,000,000 or more volumes. Prior to Babbidge being built, the Wilbur Cross Library housed the University's books and volumes. That building has now been turned into the Wilbur Cross Building, which houses various administrative offices.

Homer Daniels Babbidge, Jr. died of cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

at age 58 in March 1984. Shortly after his death, the University of Connecticut Board of Trustees, in a fitting tribute, named the university's new library, which stands central to the [main] campus, in his honor.