The grand opening of Bert’s Café will herald a new service offered to U-M Library patrons.
Space is available for students to converse at small tables, study in comfortable armchairs, work on group projects, meet with a faculty member or use library resources via a wireless access — all while enjoying a cup of coffee or tasty treat without having to leave the library.
The café officially opens 2:15 p.m. Feb. 20 at the first floor Shapiro Undergraduate Library.
Bert’s Café is made possible through the generosity of Bertram Askwith (LSA ’31) who funded the Askwith Media Library, also housed in the undergraduate library and other U-M programs.
While a journalism student at U-M and serving as an editor for the Michigan Daily, Askwith found himself and other students stranded on campus because of a strike by the New York Central Railroad during the Great Depression. Askwith decided to rent a bus and sell tickets to his fellow students so they could return to the East Coast. It worked, so he continued the venture, which covered his U-M costs during the rest of his student days.
After graduating in 1931, he went home to the New York City area and brought his new bus company, called Campus Coach Lines, with him. Today Askwith still works 10 hours a day and with his daughter, Patti Askwith Kenner, runs the business he started in the lobby of the Michigan Union.
That first bus could carry 29 passengers and took 24 hours to travel from Ann Arbor to New York City, Askwith says. There were no interstate highways then. Now his fleet has buses that can carry 49, 55 and 62 passengers and travel the metropolitan New York area and routes from Washington, D.C., to Boston.
And why would Askwith be interested in supporting the University Library? “I loved the library when I was a student,” he says. “It just feels like such an integral part of education, not restricted to one discipline or area of study, but encompassing all.”
Bert’s Café is operated by University Unions, which also manages Mujo’s Cafe in the Duderstadt Center. It is located in the first floor lobby of the Harold and Vivian Shapiro Undergraduate Library.
