Founder's Day and the 40th Anniversary of Love Library Dedication

Happy May! The first week of May has always been a special time at SDSU. For many years, students, faculty, and alumni would gather on campus this week for Founder's Day celebrations. Founder's Day (which was also called Dedication Day and May Day at various points in our history) commemorated the passage of the bill creating the San Diego Normal School by California state legislature in 1897, and was marked by festivities, performances, events, demonstrations, and open houses across campus. Programs, ephemera, news clippings, and correspondence related to Founder's Day is now collected in our Founder's Day Collection here in SCUA, as well as in the University Archives Photograph and Topical Files.

The celebration in 1971 was particularly festive, as the campus dedicated our (then brand-new) Love Library with a special ceremony. Though the ribbon-cutting on the new building had already happened in March, and though students had been able to check out materials for some time, the dedication ceremony for Love Library fixed the Library's central place in the campus and in the hearts of faculty and students. Novelist Irving Stone gave the remarks at the ceremony in the Open Air Theatre, and Everett Gee Jackson unveiled his portrait of President Love. Happy Birthday to SDSU and to Love Library!