I recently re-discovered the SML Suggestion Book that was used to allow people to comment on various library issues (often anonymously). The earliest pages are from 1987. The commentary runs the gamut from the predictable (“why can’t people be quiet,” “why is it so cold,” “about those copiers…”) to the interesting, such as this question from 1990:

Why are the majority of volumes in the library brown? Brown, brown, brown! Rochester’s winters are bad enough!

Our former Conservator and Head of Special Collections, Ted Honea, wrote a response:

Believe it or not…the dreadful color you allude to was once the “official” color of SML, chosen back in the age of Barbara Duncan [SML’s first professional librarian] because it didn’t show dirt. (I’m not making this up.) Under Ruth Watanabe [the second director of SML] the color was abandoned because of its lugubrious affect, but not until the 70’s, I believe.