Bizzell Library

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It is an elaborate Collegiate Gothic or Cherokee Gothic building, designed by the architecture firm Layton Hicks & Forsyth and constructed in 1928 during the administration of OU's fifth president, William Bennett Bizzell.

The Oklahoma Legislature appropriated $75,000 in 1917 to construct yet another library building that could be expanded in the future, but subsequent legislatures did not appropriate necessary funds to allow the project to move forward.

In 1927, state officials budgeted $500,000 for construction of a new, three-story library. New facilities included a "treasure room" to hold rare books and special collections and separate spaces for graduate and undergraduate work. A reading room, known today as the Great Reading Room, held the bulk of the 105,000 volumes the university then owned. The new library was dedicated on February 21, 1929.

Under George Lynn Cross, the University's seventh president, a 1958 addition effectively tripled the size of the structure. After a generous donation by Doris W. Neustadt, a 1982 addition was completed during the William S. Banowsky administration.