News & Events

Join employees of the IU Libraries for a piece of cake to celebrate the birthday (June 7, 1902) of Herman B Wells.

Wednesday, June 10, at 3:00 p.m.

Wells Library Lobby

Herman B Wells was a university leader, visionary, and legend. As president of Indiana University from 1938 to 1962 and university chancellor from 1962 to 2000, he is credited with transforming IU into an internationally recognized center of research and scholarship and one of America’s great public universities. Scores of alumni remember him fondly, recalling his familiar strolls through campus where he greeted them by name. Until his death at age 97, Chancellor Wells was active on the Bloomington campus where he was much beloved and where he resided across the street from what is now the Herman B Wells Library.

Chancellor Wells valued libraries throughout his long life, and Indiana University is far better for it.Collections grew by more than 640 percent during his tenure, and he considered the creation of the university’s Lilly Library a campus milestone. When Josiah K. Lilly Jr. wrote to Wells in 1954 of his intention to donate his valuable collection of rare books and manuscripts to Indiana University, Wells responded that, in his years as president, “there has been no single event which has given me greater joy.”

Shortly after Wells’ death in 2000, the Trustees of Indiana University reserved the opportunity to name the university’s largest library in his honor. With characteristic modesty, Wells had refused to allow any buildings to be named for anyone, including himself, until five years after their death.