“The issue is essentially whether Brown goes up in the air, spreads out more or stands still. We are prepared to operate under City policies that will permit us to go up or spread out. If the pressure on the University is to stand still, we shall have to resist.”

— President Keeney in a letter to the City of Providence, 1962

Among the few high-rise libraries ever built, the fourteen-story, 180-foot-tall Sciences Library opened in 1971 with a capacity of 450,000 volumes. It was built in sections of poured concrete in the briefly popular “Brutalist” style. The new library was intended to bring together the various areas of science in one place, facilitating cross-disciplinary teaching and research.