Can it be only two years, as Alan Jay Lerner once wrote, "since the whole [economic] rigmarole began"? Yet libraries have weathered to varying degrees the unreliability of funding, especially with regard to programming, materials, and hours. Money earmarked years ago is seeing construction through to conclusion; state support has helped out in some cases, defaulted in others. Private contributions seem to have fallen in the wake of personal concerns. Despite the economic vagaries, the larger focus remains the constancy of the library as a place for learning and entertainment, for bringing individuals--readers, students, researchers, gamers, dreamers--together in a space created just for them, the heart of a community, a campus, a landscape. This article presents photographs and brief descriptions of various academic library building projects, completed between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009.