Home to over two and a half million volumes and 70 study rooms, the Tampa campus’ Library is one of the top on-campus study spots with over 70,000 hours booked in study rooms last year.

But the Library hasn’t always looked as it does now. The Library called many USF buildings home before a formal building was created, and in its early history, was even set in a “little house” where the University Police is now.

This year, the Library’s current home will be turning 50.

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Being a part of the storied history of the Library, staff have reflected on their time and the building’s development through an online exhibit. 

LeEtta Schmidt, the associate director of broader impacts and copyright and intellectual property librarian, helped assemble the exhibit.

Schmidt has been working at the Library since 1997 when she started as a student assistant. 

“[This career] has been really, really interesting and invigorating,” Schmidt said. “The student position sort of drove me toward more permanent work in the Library.”

In 2001, Schmidt graduated with a bachelor’s in English literature and earned her first staff position at the circulation desk.

She has moved through positions in the Library, and said working up to her current role has taken some time, though she’s always interacted with copyright “at some level.”

Schmidt said departments, though separate, interact with one another fairly often and develop connections and friendships. 

Schmidt said these staff connections would come through during holiday parties when the other staff who had retired would “visit and hang out.”

Todd Chavez, the dean of the USF libraries, is a USF alumnus with a bachelor’s in anthropology and archaeology and a master’s in library information sciences.

Chavez has been at the university for over 40 years and celebrated his 30th anniversary in a staff position last year. 

He said for the first few years it existed, the Library was located in a “house” on campus.

“[The Library] was one of the first buildings on campus,” Chavez said. “It was a dual-use building, and in fact, it was in a little house that sat out there where the University Police are now.”

It migrated from the house to the Student Services building, the University Center – now the Marshall Student Center – and the John and Grace Allen building.

“It moved around quite a bit, and they were able to move things around without massive moving companies because of the size of the Library,” Chavez said. “I think they were only at about half a million volumes when they moved to this building [in 1975].”

Chavez started as interim dean in 2015 under Provost Ralph Wilcox, and after two extensions, is set to step down in June 2026. 

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Being a dean was not his initial career path — Chavez said after graduating with a baccalaureate, he returned to USF in 1994 with the intent to do graduate-level work in a “biology-type” area.

But he changed his mind after working at the Library.

“I decided that was actually the way I wanted to go,” Chavez said. “So I shifted my ideas about what I wanted to be when I grew up, and started the [library sciences] program.”

Despite the changes to the Library, one of its longstanding departments is Special Collections. This department includes rare, archived and original books, artifacts and journals.

Tomaro Taylor, the director of Special Collections, joined USF as a freshman in 1995 and started working for the Library as a graduate assistant in 2001.

Two years later, Taylor was given a staff position.

But Taylor’s career plans were originally angled for use in museums. USF didn’t have a program for museum studies, leading her to take library sciences instead.

“I read that library sciences was the closest thing to that,” Taylor said. “But there wasn’t really much in that degree that lent to going to a museum, I just didn’t exactly want to leave USF yet.”

As the director of Special Collections, she works as an archivist and “mentor” for staff.

Taylor said her position entails a lot of “relationship management,” as she works with other departments and staff to catalog, archive and digitize materials as they arrive.

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One of her favorite memories at the Library is from circa 2007 in the special collections room when she and a few of her coworkers decided to “chair race” down the aisle between the stacks.

“I think it was just like that moment, that perfect moment of camaraderie, you know, where you’re like, ‘Hey, let’s all take a break and have a little fun together,’” Taylor said.