What is the history of the "900 Room" in the college union?
Today, the Knobloch Campus Center is home to the Alvarez College Union. Prior to Alvarez, the student union was Grey College Union. Prior to being the Grey College Union, this building was Grey Library.
In this September 23, 1996 Davidsonian article, former Director of the College Union William Brown recollects how the 900 Room go its name.
“In the days when this building was a library, the floor that is now the balcony went all the way across. On that floor the large majority of the books… were the 900 number books, [which is] the history section of the Dewey Decimal system.” When the Grey Library was being converted in to what is today’s College Union, “they knocked out the floor to open the room up and to create the space we have now,” Brown says. Then when it came time to dedicate the new space, Brown says “some great soul had the idea that we call it the 900 Room."