In 1962, as construction was getting underway at Grand Valley State College, the administrators vacated their downtown Grand Rapids office and moved into several small houses near the new campus in Allendale. While a small gray farm house was selected as the site of administrative offices, a pink ranch house with a two-car garage was chosen to house the college’s budding library collection.
To prepare for the college’s opening in 1963 Library Director Stephen Ford and his staff of seven worked out of this small house, collecting and cataloging over 10,000 books.
When the college finally opened, space was set aside for the library collection in Lake Michigan Hall, the only building that had been completed on campus at the time. Director Ford and his staff packed up the Pink House and moved the library collection to its temporary site.
What became of the Pink House is uncertain, but once the college had opened its doors students made good use of the temporary Lake Michigan Hall Library. Still, students and faculty alike eagerly awaited the construction of Zumberge Library to be complete.
Zumberge Library finally opened in the spring of 1969 and served as the campus’ intellectual center until it was replaced by the Mary Idema Pew Library in 2013. GVSU now has five total library locations on its Allendale and Grand Rapids campuses, and holds over 1.6 million titles in its print and electronic collections.
