Douglas Library is the oldest of Queen’s libraries. The southern half of the building was completed in 1924 and is faced with Kingston limestone; the northern part, built in the same neo-gothic style but faced with Queenston limestone, was added in 1966 and features three underground floors.
The library’s functions have evolved considerably over its 100-year history. It was originally built to house the university’s whole library collection and also contained the offices of the Principal and other senior officials until Richardson Hall was built in 1954.
When separate faculty and departmental libraries began to multiply across campus in the 1960s and 70s, Douglas Library became the university’s main social sciences and humanities library, as well as the home for the library system administrative offices, a periodicals room, and a Special Collections unit for rare or fragile publications.
After the opening of Stauffer Library in 1994, Douglas Library was closed for extensive renovation to improve space and mechanical services. It reopened in 1997 as an amalgamated library replacing individual department libraries for engineering and applied science and several science departments within the arts and science, and was renamed the Engineering and Science Library.
In a second phase of renovations to one floor of the Douglas Library, the W.D. Jordan Special Collections and Music Library was created and opened in 1999. At the same time, a refurbishment of the reading rooms located on the top floor (which contain beautiful stained glass windows) was undertaken.
The library is located on the southeast corner of University Avenue and Union Street and is named in honour of James Douglas, Queen’s Chancellor from 1915 to 1918.1
- Taken from the Queen’s Encyclopedia: Douglas Library (https://www.queensu.ca/encyclopedia/d/douglas-library) ↩︎