A few years before he died, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., sat at his desk on the 13th floor of the library named after him, a cigar smoldering in the ashtray, telling jaw-dropping stories despite his diminished vision. One involved a future pope.

Father Hesburgh invited Giovanni Batista Cardinal Montini to Notre Dame in 1960 to preach at the baccalaureate Mass and receive an honorary doctorate. The two priests spoke Italian and took walks to every corner of the campus, building the foundation of their long friendship.

In his autobiography, Father Hesburgh wrote: “The new main library was just a hole in the ground at the time, and I described our plans for a new three-million-volume library.” On this day in his office, he told the rest of the story.

Cardinal Montini asked him if he had already raised the money to build the then-largest college library in the world. Father Hesburgh said no, only a part of the money. Cardinal Montini asked why he would dig the foundation without knowing whether he would complete the fundraising.

“Cardinal, you have to have faith,” Father Hesburgh told the future Pope Paul VI, flashing his trademark smile.

Fifty years later, the University began a major renovation project by looking back at Father Hesburgh’s original vision before re-imagining the library’s role for the next 50 years. The partially completed project aims to overhaul the look, services and use of the library for the digital age. The multi-million dollar re-construction shows that current University leadership shares Father Hesburgh’s faith in the library’s core mission: connecting people to knowledge.

The Word of Life mural on the building’s southern wall, popularly known as Touchdown Jesus, aptly illustrates this mission. It tells the story of Christ the teacher, with generations of scholars transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next across the ages.

“I wanted in 1963, and still desire today, for the library literally to stand for the future of Notre Dame as a place of unmatched intellectual achievement, free inquiry, and providential contributions to mankind,” Father Hesburgh said in an interview for a book about the library’s 50th anniversary. “Let the library be a place on this campus where that hunger for truth will keep getting stronger, supporting freedom and justice around the world, inspiring excellence, and prodding us to bigger dreams.”

Yet how to achieve that goal has changed dramatically. Books are still the core resource of any library, but expanding the rows and rows of bookshelves could not possibly keep up with the ways students and faculty create new knowledge, the pace of new information being published or how scholarship is disseminated today.

Over the last six years, the renovation project has literally reshaped key areas of the building to focus on the expertise, services, distinctive collections and spaces that enhance teaching, learning and research for and in collaboration with the University community.

Read the full ND Stories feature: Renovated for a New Role