About Us
"The library is the heart of the university...."
Charles William Eliot, President, Harvard, 1869-1926
Library Directory
Librarians by Subject Specialty
Library Departments
Library Mission Statement
Stephenson Scholarship
Future Library Committee
Student Workers Honored
Library History
Slippery Rock Normal School recognized the importance of establishing a library for research and study and housed their original collections on the third floor of Old Main. In the campus building boom of 1936, Maltby Library was established at a cost of approximately $100,000.00. The new library was named after the second principal of Slippery Rock Normal School, Dr. Albert E. Maltby, and was dedicated on January 30, 1939.
A red brick colonial structure, the building has a slate 
roof topped by a
lead cupola at the center peak. Large, gracefully arched windows provided natural lighting for its numerous
reading rooms. The building was rectangular in shape and consisted of a main floor and basement.
Expansion of the Maltby Library was completed in 1960. The building is today known as Maltby Center and houses Information Technology. This gracious building served as the campus library until the current building, Bailey Library, was completed in 1973.
The current building was named for Dr. Matilda Bailey who was a popular teacher and
member of the English department from 1935 to 1941, and again from 1957 to 1958. When she returned to teach as
a visiting professor in the early 1960s, she was a national celebrity, the author of textbooks for junior high
English courses, which sold over a million copies a year. Her close friend and officemate during some of this
time was Dr. Albert Schmittlein. He remembers her well. "She was sophistication. When she came into a classroom
she was dressed magnificently. She wore a mink stole and she'd slip that stole off and toss it over a chair and
proceed to lecture. It would look as if it were all off the cuff, but it wasn't; it was all extremely well
prepared. When she did something she went all out. There were never any boring moments in a Matilda Bailey
classroom."
Bailey library is composed of three levels and a basement. The brick building includes a computer lab, a quiet
and cozy reading room housing popular fiction and nonfiction books, and a coffee shop. The building also
contains over 75 computers for student use. 
The focal point of the first floor reference room is a large
and inviting information desk where students are encouraged to ask for help. Other public areas in the building
are the Instructional Materials Center, Government Documents Area, and the Serials Department. The library
subscribes to approximately 10,000 online full text journals, magazines, and newspapers and many other print
and electronic resources. The library collection currently includes over 500,000 books. From 1973 to the
present, Bailey Library has had three directors and one interim director: Harold Helmrich, Edna King,
William Garton, Dr. Barbara Farah, and Philip Tramdack, the current Director of Library Services.
Acknowledgements
The Library would like to acknowledge the following contributions to the Library web site.
- Jason Neel, Student Web Designer and Programmer
- Jeremy Salopek, Student Photographer
- Susan Ferrandiz, Professor Emeritus, Original Author of Websites by Subject
- Communication Media Group, Student Web Designers