This emerged a while ago from the old Rice Institute Library papers. The restrictions on after hours access to the library in Lovett Hall are certainly eye-catching but I don’t think they’re especially surprising. On the other hand I was just a little surprised to see Augie Erfurth ’49 on the list of after hours users:
Augie was a San Antonio native and a four year track letterman at Rice. After eleven years as a coach at Brackenridge High School in his home town he came back to Rice and spent 26 years serving with great honor first as track coach, then assistant AD, and finally as Rice’s Athletic Director. Here’s what he looked like when he was working late in the library:
Bonus: Of all the things I saw on the empty campus yesterday this was the emptiest.
The Woodson is just on the other side of this window. I tried to peek in but the blinds were closed.
Sigh.
Which reminds me of Larry McMurtry’s “All My Friends are Going to be Strangers,” in which Rice grad student Danny Deck has a key to the library for after hours access.
I and a few of my friends got locked in in the late 80s while we were studying for a test. We were looking at old tests or something and were trying to squeeze minutes in. We got a librarian to let us out, she was super pissed.
I got locked in in the late 80s too, returning some equipment to the Shepherd School offices on the 5th floor after a late concert.
I’ve been both locked in and locked out of various places in Fondren so many times I lost count. I was forced to memorize the key numbers.
If anyone can imagine, Fondren Library was the ONLY building on Rice Campus that was air conditioned (1957-58). It was a real privilege to be a grad student and have a key to the library. Both the tables and sofas were more comfortable than a hot bunk bed in the dorms.