ARCHIVAL PHOTO
PHOTO BY KEVIN REMINGTON
CHRONICLES
The book brigade in action.
THE BIG MOVE BY LOUISE UFFELMAN
40 THE WASHINGTON AND LEE MAGAZINE
Will Mackie ’81 wears his Big Move T-shirt one last time before donating it to Special Collections.
T
he call to action went out by word of mouth, was advertised in the Ring-tum Phi and announced by professors — we need you. President Bob Huntley ’52, ’57L set aside Jan. 10, 1979, for The Big Move, a much-anticipated event. Faculty, students, staff and members of the Lexington community assembled early in the morning to load approximately 150,000 books at McCormick Hall Library into shopping bags (supplied by Leggett Department store) and walk them partway down Stemmons Plaza to their shelves in the new university library, now Leyburn Library. The 1979 Calyx heralded the end of four years of “bulldozers, jackhammers, smoke and dust” and described the new space as “a modern gargantuan structure” that was “the symbol of a new age for W&L.” The new library could seat 800 students, included 560 individual carrels, was fully carpeted and was open from 8:30 a.m. to midnight.
Will Mackie ’81 remembers the occasion well. “It was quite a feat to have moved the entire book collection from McCormick Hall to the spanking brand-new library in one day,” he said. “The administration was clever enough to make this a festive event with free food and drinks, mapping out the course to move the books to the respective stacks, and giving us a day off from class.” Many hands make light work, and the move was completed by 10:50 a.m. “Having this new library was a pretty exciting development on campus,” said Mackie. “It was, in my recollection, the first big, modern space to be built on the Colonnade in a while.” He added, “Being part of the book brigade still stands out in my mind as one of my most memorable moments at W&L. That kind of collective effort — being part of a larger project — doesn’t happen often, and it made us all feel like we contributed to the school in a tangible way.”
