The McEwen building is located in the Historic Neighborhood of Elon University, off of North Williamson Avenue in Elon, North Carolina. The library was built in order to replace the Carlton Library, which was too small to serve Elon’s entire growing student base. The building cost $700,000 to build and was a large part of a campus extension that took place in the mid-1960s. On June 15, 1968, students, faculty, and staff helped move the entire collection of 67,000 books from Carlton to McEwen. The library could hold up to 120,000 volumes and 600 students on three floors. It also featured 235 private study carrels and 24 listening tables for vinyl records and cassette tapes. Later, once the Belk Library was constructed, the McEwen building was transformed into the communications school for the university.
