Librarian in Residence – Goethe-Institut New York

The Princeton University campus is the site of a huge construction project at the moment – that of the Firestone Library. Opened in 1948 as Princeton’s main library, it was expanded in 1988 and since then has made spatial adjustments only as the situation called for. The renovation, to be carried out over a ten-year period, will prepare the library for the future. Preparations began in 2010 and the first major stage of construction followed this year. I took the opportunity to view the construction site in the company of several colleagues.

The first sign of renovation in the library’s interior is a provisional wall in the entrance hall, which will come down in a few days and behind which asbestos is being removed. A great deal of asbestos was originally used throughout the library and now is being removed to the greatest extent possible. For this reason, almost every section of the site has provisional walls and is following the appropriate safety measures, which are the source of delays.

On the first leg of the tour, Bobray Bordelon made clear how maze-like the library is, with its three belowground and three aboveground floors, its hidden nooks and crannies, and a somewhat difficult to comprehend organization. One acknowledged aim of the renovation is to change this. The simplification of this organization has already begun: until recently the collections employed two different call-number systems. The Richardson system was used into the 1960s, after which the Library of Congress system was applied. In the interim almost all of the older collections have been switched to the Library of Congress system. Due to the construction work, however, the collections cannot be assembled in one location, but must be relocated, sometimes more than once. The end goal is a transparent alphanumerical organization from top to bottom. And to make the building less bewildering, nooks and crannies will be opened up.

A further goal of the renovation is to make the library more efficient. The heating and cooling system dates from the 1940s and will be brought up to today’s standards. To this end, a heat recovery system will be installed and single-glazed windows replaced. In addition, water and light will be used to better effect. Wiring will be updated to accommodate the large number of computers and power supply connections for laptops and to relieve the many makeshift solutions that have been offered to library users up to this point. All in all, more, better, and more attractive work stations are planned for library users, who have urgently requested them. The best example of the unattractive work stations currently still in use are the carrels located on the subterranean floors of the library and which are not exactly inviting in terms of use. This fall, in order to create more space, especially for library user work stations, roughly 100 staff members of the cataloguing and technical services sections will be moved to a building off-campus.

Altogether, the renovation will lead to a lengthy period of major restrictions for library users and staff. To make work as pleasant as possible for users, the planning stage includes the creation of quiet work areas for students.

It is Peggy Kehrer’s responsibility to keep the flow of information moving, and she was able to make some time for me as well. As an architect, her main task is to mediate between library and construction crew. At the moment she sends weekly mails to inform staff of the latest developments. To keep library users informed, notices are posted everywhere on campus, and news and information posted on the university website and blogged. Nevertheless, of course, library users send many questions and complaints to the staff, who themselves are dealing with the burden of the noise and constant changes brought on by the renovation. This is a difficult time for all involved. I wish for all of them the energy required for the task and hope that in the end each will say that it was worth it.

In the interim I’ve learned a bit more about the history of the building. It all began in 2001 with a 60 million dollar donation made by Peter B. Lewis, a Princeton graduate who made his fortune in the insurance business and counts among the university’s major donors.
Peter B. Lewis tied his donation to the condition that it be used to build a science library. The university decided to build a library that would combine the collections of the Astrophysics, Biology, Geosciences, Mathematics, Physics und Psychology Libraries. Part of these libraries had already been merged in the former mathematics library in Fine Hall, and it was also to join the new library. Frank Gehry, renowned for such international projects as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, was chosen as architect for the new building.

Gehry’s seemingly cobbled-together exterior draws the eye, and surprises those entering the building through the “Canyon”, mentioned in my last blog, with its strongly-hued planes of color. To one side of the entrance area is found the New Media Center with its several departments, the Institute for Computational Science and Engineering, and the TIGRESS High Performance Computing Center and Visualization Laboratory. As entrance area, the Canyon is the connecting element to the library opposite, and separates the two areas from one another. In addition, both within and outside the library are classrooms that are managed by Princeton’s Administration Office rather than falling under the control of the library.

The Lewis Library has four floors aboveground and one belowground. Entering the library through the Canyon, one arrives on the ground floor, where the information desk, some staff offices, reference works, and several computers for research are found. Additional research computers, copiers, scanners and printers are scattered throughout the building. Roughly in the middle of the space there is an opening between the ground floor and the second floor. From below, this opening is barely discernible and from above, not visible at all, due to the waist-high magazine display designed to protect against falls. The opening is the cause of a certain amount of disturbance on the second floor, as one can hear every conversation at the information desk and every sound made by the book security system. Through the front windows, as through those of the ground floor, one sees the bright, multicolored walls of the Canyon, which despite the indirect light enliven the space. In the library, Gehry limited himself to patches of color on individual walls and furniture chosen as color accents, otherwise the walls are an unobtrusive white and the furnishings of light-colored wood. In addition to staff offices and a library room for computer training, the second floor also houses the so-called Tree House, its large windows looking out into the trees, creating a quiet workspace.

Additional workspaces are found on the third and fourth floors, among them spaces where groups can meet, along with classrooms that are not part of the library. The rest of the library collection is located in the basement and in Fine Hall’s former math library, which one reaches by the corridor from the Lewis Library or through its own entrance, and which was not renovated.

The Peter B. Lewis Library was officially opened in 2008. All in all it is a modern, functioning library, with minor flaws, one that I would like to have experienced when the library was fully in operation instead of during the summer break. What I find particularly impressive is the effective use of color, with which difficult spatial issues find an elegant solution, and also the multitude of workspaces devoted to concentrated study that are scattered throughout the building, especially the Tree House and rooms on the third and fourth floors. It is unfortunate that Fine Hall, with its 1970’s style so different from that of the Lewis Library, has been treated in such neglectful fashion. The staff does its best to deal with this situation; perhaps the water damage suffered last December will provide a chance for renovation.

Yesterday I changed location and library yet again. I went right across the country from the sunburnt hills of California to the oppressive mugginess of New Jersey, and from the small new campus of the University of California at Merced to venerable Princeton University. There I visited the Peter B. Lewis Library, which opened in 2008 and is connected with the math/physics library in neighboring Fine Hall. As a tribute to the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research, earth sciences, astrophysics, physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, the map collection and the digital map and geospatial information (GIS) center have been consolidated. This centralization was begun before the new building was constructed, and was further carried out in stages during construction by having other departments of the university use a section of the building, separated by the so-called “canyon,” the corridor connecting the two parts of the building and which stands out above all for its vivid coloring. Due to a glass ceiling and an open configuration encompassing two floors, even on a rainy day so much light comes in that the effect of the color fields is inescapable.

I look forward to being here till the end of next week and having a chance to get to know an entirely different library in an entirely different university setting, and to getting a better look at the design of the Lewis Library.