The Need for Private Support
A Visionary Building in Honor of a Visionary Man
The newest science building now being built on The University of Texas
at Austin campus will be named in honor and memory of Dr. Norman
Hackerman, chemist, professor and president emeritus. It replaces the
original Experimental Sciences Building (ESB), which itself was a center of
science research when it originally opened in 1952. The Norman Hackerman
Artist’s rendering of the Norman Hackerman Building
Building will house state-of-the-art classrooms and teaching labs for organic
by CO Architects.
chemistry, research labs for faculty from the Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry, the Center for Learning and Memory, and the Institute for
Neuroscience. It will also provide research laboratory space for the Section of
Neurobiology, a vivarium, a multifunctional imaging suite, advanced NMR
facilities, and administrative suites for both the School of Biological Sciences
and the Center for Learning and Memory. The building will house cutting-
edge research space for hood-intensive chemistry including the new Center
for Green Chemistry. It will connect with the Nanoscience and Technology
Building on its north side bridging together many interdisciplinary fields and
core research facilities virtually under one roof.
“By naming this new building after Norm Hackerman, we are forever
honoring one of the most influential figures in the history of our university,”
said William Powers Jr., President of The University of Texas at Austin.
“Dr. Hackerman was a visionary leader, a superb scientist and a compelling
advocate for higher education. This building will be an enduring symbol of
his legacy.”
Continued on Page 26
The “New” Library, Thirty Years Along
On August 11, 2008, the Mallet Chemistry Library marked thirty years in its
present location in Welch Hall. Those three decades have seen many changes
in the way chemists use information, not to mention the passage of over six
million people through its doors. In August 1978, when the new 12,000
square-foot library facility opened, books and journals filled less than half
the shelving. Aubrey Skinner had been the Mallet Librarian for 27 years.
Jimmy Carter was president of the United States. Biochemist Lorene Rogers
was president of UT Austin. The top Billboard album was the Bee Gees’
Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Gasoline averaged 64 cents per gallon.
Science journals were comparatively inexpensive: JACS cost $136 and a year
of Tetrahedron Letters was $440. Patrons located books using something called
a card catalog, a relic which few people under the age of 35 have ever even seen.
Above: Students making good use of the Mallet
And students needing to do a literature search spent hours poring through the
Library back in 1978, as they still do.
tiny print of Chemical Abstracts and scribbling down references to track down
Below: Phillip F. Britt, now the Director of the Chemi-
in the stacks.
cal Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
conducting research in the Mallet Library circa 1984.
If the changes science has seen in the last thirty years are astounding, the
changes in information gathering are no less remarkable, thanks largely to
the coming of the Internet. It’s a cliché to call it a revolution, but that’s what
20
we’ve seen! A grad student today would have a hard time imagining how
“library research” was done back in those days.
Continued on Page 28
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