The Emmanuel College Library originally occupied one room across from the Assembly Hall on the first floor of the Administration Building with 10,000 volumes available to the community. By June 1932, the Emmanuel College Library occupied three rooms on the first floor of the Administration Building that allowed seating for eighty-eight people and 12,000 volumes. The 1930s also saw the Library acting as a branch library system with the Science Departments (Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) and Mathematics Department overseeing their own library spaces. Further expansion to the Library occurred in 1936 when two new rooms were added to the Library, one that was devoted to periodicals and the other was used to house collections related to the Greek and German Languages and by June 1938 the Library had a sixth room that housed material for the Latin, Greek and French Departments. By June 1940, a seventh room was added to the Library and was used as a work-space for the librarians. In addition, patron services were enhanced with the addition of a charging desk and new chairs and tables. By June 1946, the Library added an eighth room for the History Department that contained space for 3,340 volumes and space for twelve students. It was also during the 1940s that new cork floors and a lighting system were installed for the Library.

 

Around 1947, Archbishop Richard Cushing met with Sr. Margaret Patricia Herbert, SND, (College President) and Sr. Helen Madeline Ingraham, SND, (Academic Dean), members of the Alumnae Board and students and discussed the need for Emmanuel College’s expansion. At the meeting a program entitled “Emmanuel of Tomorrow” was established to raise money for the construction of a science building (Alumnae Hall), a (student) union building (Marian Hall), a faculty house/convent (St. James Hall), residence halls, and a library. By June 1949, the Emmanuel College Library had 29,753 volumes.

 

Attention to the building of a new Emmanuel College Library began in the 1960s, after the construction of Alumnae Hall (which contained a science library). In addition, Marian Hall (which contained a curriculum library), Julie Hall, and St. James Hall was completed. Plans for a new $2 million library were drawn by drawn by Maginnis and Walsh and Kennedy, calling for the creation of a microfilm, seminar and listening rooms, a lecture hall, as well as, stacks designed to hold 200,000 volumes and 93 study carrels. The Library would be named after Richard Cardinal Cushing, a generous benefactor of the College. The construction of the building was overseen by Walsh Bros. On June 5, 1965, the new library, that occupied 52,880 square feet, was dedicated by Richard Cardinal Cushing. He later attended a dinner in honor of its completion at the Sheraton-Boston Hotel.

 

In 1976, the Cardinal Cushing Library received a grant from WK Kellogg Foundation Grant that was to be used for the improvement of the College Library’s services through the application of new technologies. This grant was designed to allow the Library to become part of Nelinet, a multi-state New England cooperative library network to provide computerized services. It was in this same year that the Cardinal Cushing Library formed the WILL (Walk-In Inter Library Loan) program with several other Boston area colleges. Students could borrow books from any of these libraries by presenting their college/university I.D. By this time the Library contained 111,000 volumes.

 

As the Library entered the 1980s, it continued its cooperation with other area libraries. However, this time the goal of the joint venture was automation of the card catalog. By February 1995, the Cardinal Cushing Library was accepted as an official member of the Fenway Libraries Online (FLO) and the Library card catalog was automated that would eventually lead to the creation of Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). In addition to the development of the OPAC, the Library began adding computers, CD-ROM workstations, a fax machine (1993), the internet (1993) and access to almost fifty databases (on CD-ROM and online) by January 1994. In 2010 the Emmanuel College Archives was established as a division of the Cardinal Cushing Library to preserve a coherent history of Emmanuel College in both print and online formats. As of December 2013 the Cardinal Cushing Library had 2,000 active print and electronic periodical subscriptions and sixty-two (62) online subscription databases. As of June 2015 there were 357,181 volumes (in both print and electronic formats) in the Cardinal Cushing Library Collection. In 2017, the Cardinal Cushing Library was merged with the Academic and Technology Innovation Group (ATIG) to form the Learning Commons.

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