MARY HARMON BRYANT HALL
Building ID: 1038 | Abbreviation: SCF
500 Hackberry Lane
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401
Built 1997 and originally known as the Special Collections Building, Mary Harmon Bryant Hall is the storage, teaching, and research center for most of UA's scientific collections. The W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library is also located on the second floor of the building and contains research materials documenting the unique historical and cultural experiences of The University of Alabama, the State of Alabama, and the Southeast. In 2001, the building was renamed to honor Mary Harmon Bryant, wife of legendary Crimson Tide football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. The first floor of the building houses the Alabama State Oil and Gas Board/Geological Survey of Alabama rock sample and drilling core repository in addition to the offices and research laboratories of the Energy Investigations Program of the Geological Survey of Alabama. On the second floor, in the lobby of Hoole, stands the historic Tiffany stain-glass window which was dedicated to the cadets that fought to defend the university in the Civil War. The window was originally placed in the first Gorgas library, now Carmichael Hall, in 1925 before being moved to the current Gorgas Library and then finally resting in Mary Harmon Bryant Hall. On the third floor, the Alabama Museum of Natural History conserves a broad array of collections including paleontology, mammalogy, history, ethnology, ornithology, osteology, mineralogy, entomology, and photography. The herbarium and the ichthyological, herpetological, and mollusk collections of the UA department of biological sciences are located on the fourth floor. A 4500-item collection of historic costumes and textiles is also housed in Mary Harmon Bryant Hall.