By the mid-1950s, however, the library was beginning to show its age and was quickly running out of room for the more than 250,000 volumes it was holding. In 1960, then-University of Kentucky President Frank G. Dickey proposed a new library but did not receive any assurance from the state's General Assembly that funding would be appropriated. It also received a flat response from then-Director of Libraries at the university, Lawrence S. Thompson, who was more interested in developing special collections than expanding the facility.