The Albert M. Bender Room offers beautiful views of the Quad and the hills beyond campus, as well as comfortable seating and a quiet atmosphere for study, leisure reading, and reflection. The Bender Room contains a non-circulating collection of books of current and classic interest, both fiction and non-fiction. This collection was made possible by a generous gift from the Stanford University Bookstore. 

The Memorabilia Area of the room, together with its adjacent reading area, has been dedicated to the love of reading and to Anna May Bell Dunlap, AB 1900, and Sue Elizabeth Dunlap Hillman, AB 1931, by the generosity of a gift from Barbara Ann Hillman, AB 1962.

Historical notes show that in 1933, the Stanford Library's scattered special collections, approximately 5000 volumes, were placed in a seminar room on the top floor of the library called the Rare Book Room. Several years, later the room was renamed for Albert M. Bender, the San Francisco bibliophile whose philanthropy benefited Stanford's rare book collections.