In this project I will be talking about the history of the Ruth Ann Musick Library. When it was built, when it was renamed, why it was named this, and who Ruth Ann Musick is.
The Ruth Ann Musick Library(which was not named this at the time of it being built), was built in 1951, from what I learned an architectural business called Omni Architects. The Library was first built at around 20,000 square feet but was expanded 5,000 feet to make room for the cafe/lounge area. This project costed around $15,000,000.
Photo Credit: https://columnsfairmontstate.com/3218/student-life/library/ruth-ann-musick-library/
The Ruth Ann Musick Library has a wide variety of illustrations anywhere from online of the Library website, or in person at the Library on campus. Today, Fairmont State students, staff, and faculty can access the library from home. 50,000 e-books, 150 databases containing millions of articles, and virtual reference by online chat support the educational process. If you were to visit the library in person the library is 3 stories tall with the second and third floors filled with shelves of books for anyone to check out.
Photo Credit: https://www.fairmontstate.edu/fsunow/academics/ruth-ann-musick-library-home-away-home
The library wasn't always named the Ruth Ann Musick Library, I've tried to find if there was another name but I believe that before it's name change it was just the library. Ruth Ann Musick passed away in Fairmont, bequeathing the entirety of her folklore estate to Fairmont State University, which is now archived in the West Virginia Folklife center on campus. After her death in 1974, the University made a decision in 1980 to fully change the name of the library to honor Ruth Ann Musick and call it the Ruth Ann Musick Library, so her memory will live on in Fairmont for as long as the school is still standing.
Picture Source: https://librarycommission.wv.gov/library_map/Pages/LibraryDetails.aspx?Title=Fairmont%20State%20University%20-%20Ruth%20Ann%20Musick%20Library
Using the Library website online I found the old yearbooks for Fairmont State, "The Mound". I went through all of them and found that up until around 1990 they listed the staff with their positions, so finding librarians was tedious but easy. This page will show a list of the former librarians from 1910 to 1981.
Lucy Rogers Morrow, Ida M. Abbott, Clarence B. Lee, Emory F. McKinney, Vivian Reynolds Boughter, Emma G. Parsons, Josephine Rosier, Emma G. Parsons, Harold Degner Jones, Josephine Rosier, Robert Masters, and Mary Jo Fayoyin.
Ruth Ann Musick- Born on September 17, 1897 was an American writer and folklorist specializing in West Virginia. She was the sister of artist Archie Musick and niece of writer John R. Musick. Ruth Ann was born in Kirksville, Missouri where she attended Kirksville State Teacher's College (now Truman State University) and received a degree in Education in 1919. She taught at Luana High School and Garwin High School before she decided to continue her education at the State University of Iowa, where she graduated with a Master of Science in mathematics in 1928. She then went back to teaching and taught at Logan High School and Phoenix Union High School before returning to the Midwest in 1938 and enrolling once again in the State University of Iowa where she was granted a Doctor of Philosophy in English in 1943. Musick began her college teaching career at Iowa's William Penn College, 2 years later she became a faculty member of Iowa Wesleyan College. In 1946 she moved to West Virginia to accept a teaching position at Fairmont State College, now Fairmont State University, where she continued to teach until her retirement in May of 1967. Throughout all this time teaching though, she wrote several novels and stories including: Hell's Holler, The Telltale Lila Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales, A Missouri Dance Call, Three Folksongs from Missouri, and many more.
Photo Credit:
https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1539