History meets state of the art 2 case studies: one library blends hi-tech with inspirational architecture. Another links existing edifices in a modern center. What do they have in common? Plenty - College Libraries

University Business, Oct, 2002 by Jeff Morris

Funding

In issuing the "Ames Challenge" for funding, Chuck and Jay Ames committed to match all gifts for the library, up to $g million, as well as match all gifts to the Alumni Annual Fund--provided alumni contributed at least $1 million a year for the next three years. The alumni came through, resulting in the biggest single donation in IWU's history, some $12 million. Total cost of the Ames Library project: $25.7 million.

The Results

Since opening its doors in January 2002, the Ames Library has indeed assumed its intended role as LWU's focal point. "The impact of the facility on the campus can't be overstated," says Freeman. "A phenomenal number of students are using the building. There's a real thirst for traditional inspirational environments. The trend has come back to a desire for a place that enables learning--using and forwarding information and developing critical thinking--and enables collaboration of students and faculty." Freeman estimates that "with its overall quality, systems allowing it to evolve, large open spaces, and adaptability, Ames is probably a 50- to 100-year building."

In his message in the Spring 2002 issue of Illinois Wesleyan University Magazine, President Myers notes that students came in droves to the new library in its first days, not merely, as one would expect, to explore the building out of curiosity, but to stay and put it to use. He relates the story of a student who, only days after arriving back on campus, told a librarian that he was already three days ahead in his academic work--simply because he had spent so much time in the library. "He loved the building so much that he didn't want to leave, so he stayed to study." Can there be any higher measure of success for an academic library?

SCHOW SCIENCE LIBRARY

Williams College, Williamstown, MA

Helena Warburg, head of the Science Library at Williams College, recalls that when she arrived at the school in 1990, "We had six separate departmental (science) libraries, scattered among four different science buildings. All were unstaffed; there was no reference assistance, no automated checkout; in fact, books were checked out--and shelved--by the students themselves. But the critical point was, there was no room. We used two offsite storage locations--a garage and a building across the street--to house older materials for which we simply had no space. And once there, the materials became, essentially, inaccessible."

Bob Frasca of the Zimmer Gunsel Frasca Partnership (ZGF), an architectural firm based in Washington, DC, recalls the situation: "The school's goal was to bring the libraries together, to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of science today--quite different from when the original campus was built 100 years ago." Of the four existing science buildings located in the historic center of the campus, he says, "Three dated from the turn of the last century; the science labs in those buildings looked like Madame Curie herself had used them. But the school wanted to keep and continue to use them."