Emery B. Denny Building (Wake Forest, North Carolina)

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The Emory B. Denny Building was constructed by the Seminary in 1958 to replace the old Heck-Williams Building (1878) which was razed in 1957. In 1969, the Board of Trustees named it in honor of Dr. Emery B. Denny, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, a trustee of the Seminary and a longtime friend and supporter.

The Seminary Library, housed in the Emory B. Denny Building, is dynamically involved with faculty and students in the achievement of educational objectives. It provides resources and services to support the research and study of the faculty and to meet the needs of students for the free and independent study which is stimulated by classroom, chapel, and other components of student life situations. Provided also is a broad range of materials for the general educational, cultural, and recreational interests of students, faculty, and their families.

A major building project, completed in 1977, has transformed the Library's Emery B. Denny Building into a modern facility, enlarged by fifty percent and redesigned functionally. Individual study-carrels and materials on open shelves are dispersed throughout the carpeted, air-conditioned building. Audiovisual facilities, microform readers and printers, a computer lab, typing rooms, group-study rooms, and photocopying equipment are also provided. In this setting, personal service is emphasized by a staff of seven full-time and twenty part-time persons.

The Library's collection has grown to more than 300,000 items including books, periodical volumes, music scores, music recordings and audiovisual materials, microforms, computer software, and Baptist documents. Currently received periodicals total over 1,100 titles. The microforms, containing approximately 95,000 volumes of books, periodicals, and dissertations, make this young library's collection strong in Early American and Early British materials, including important Baptist history resources. The collection is adequate to serve all of the Seminary's programs of study.

The resources and services of the Library are augmented greatly by the proximity of excellent university libraries and by an increase in both the scope and degree of cooperation with these libraries and others throughout the nation. As a charter member of the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET), the Library is using a shared computer facility by means of an on-line computer terminal. The Library also participates in the North Carolina Information Network.

In addition to funds allocated to the Seminary by the Southern Baptist Convention, the Library benefits from the generosity of many individuals and organizations. Each year, a number of cash gifts are received for the purchase of books. Eighty-four gifts, each of one thousand dollars or more, are providing endowment income for memorial book shelves. Several gifts of private book collections have added significantly to the Library's strength. During the summer of 1995, the Library installed the Dynix Marquis Integral Library Automation System. This tool for bibliographical research enables all users to perform search and retrieve tasks via a personal computer.

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