In the years after World War I, the University of North Carolina (UNC) transformed itself from a respectable, but provincial, academic institution to a true research university, becoming in 1922 only the second university in the South to be admitted to the Association of American Universities. The development of the library was part of that transformation, and the dedication of a new library building on October 19, 1929 can be seen as the symbolic high-water mark of a period of growth and maturation for the university. On that sunny Saturday in Chapel Hill, the university band led a group of dignitaries, alumni, and well-wishers into Memorial Hall for a program officially dedicating the new library. University president Harry Woodburn Chase presided. North Carolina governor O. Max Gardner presented the building to the university; John Sprunt Hill, chairman of the trustee building committee and a long-time library supporter, accepted it. Andrew Keogh, Yale University librarian and American Library Association president, delivered the dedication address.