Wesleyan's Willet Library, a three-story Georgian brick building, was constructed in 1968 and dedicated to the memory of Lucy Lester Willet, class of 1881.
With a challenge grant from the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation and seed money from The Peyton Anderson Foundation, the renovation of Willet Library began on the ground floor in 2016. The second floor was completed in 2019. The third floor renovation began in December 2020 and is expected to be completed in May 2021. Since the project began, 224 donors have made capital gifts (in addition to their annual fund gifts) to help fund the renovation.
When news of the Willet Library renovation was announced in 2015, fiftieth reunion planning committees for the Classes of 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1971 were prompt in making commitments to raise funds to name new library spaces. The Class of 1960 joined the efforts, too, in honor of their sixtieth class reunion by naming the new Librarian Suite for their classmate the late Tena Roberts, retired librarian, archivist, and faculty emerita.
The renovated Willet Library is a full-service learning, research, and project space that integrates sophisticated technology into a comfortable and welcoming setting offering access to information resources in a variety of spaces that facilitate both collaborative and quiet, focused work.
Circulation, reserves, current periodicals, personal computer stations, media hubs, and Video-to-Go are located on the first floor and are accessible twenty-four hours a day by key card access. The Academic Resource Center (ARC), which includes the Reference Center, Writing Center, and Testing Center, the Candy and Malcolm Burgess Design Lab, and a classroom are also housed on the main floor.
Willet’s second floor includes several classroom and meeting spaces, movable seating for solo and group study, a state-of-the-art computer classroom, and a Maker Space, in addition to a lounge.
Willet Library's third floor is known as the "quiet zone," perfect for students looking for a noiseless place to study. It will be home to Wesleyan's archives and special collections, archival storage, archival processing, a reading room, a display/museum space, and two small study rooms.