The project
After five years of program study and refinement by Library Planning Committees and explorations of library schemes that would incorporate Starr Library or the Science Center into a renovated and expanded facility, in May, 2000, the Board of Trustees voted to proceed with planning for a main library apart from the Starr facilities. At their October meeting the Trustees approved a program for a new building of approximately 135,000 sf., a conceptual design by Gwathmey Siegel Associates, and a project budget of $40,000,000. Lee Kennedy Co., Inc. provided construction management for the new library, ultimately designed with 143,000 gsf, with a target date for occupancy in early summer 2004.
The site
-On the College's front campus adjacent to Storrs Avenue.
-Selected by the trustees after investigations by Wallace Floyd Associates, Gwathmey Siegel Associates, and the Library Planning Committee.
-Offering a prominence suitable for such an important campus building.
-Good pedestrian accessibility from campus and village.
-Improving the relationship between the campus and Middlebury village in terms of scale, improved sight lines to Old Stone Row, and a reconfigured and landscaped Storrs Avenue.
-Preserving Starr Library for renovation as prestigious and much needed classroom space.
The goals and strategies
A building expressive of the centrality of the library in the life of the College.
-A landmark structure, prominent on the front campus, serving as a gateway from village to college, and providing an eastern terminus for Chapel Walk.
-A distinctive design, of its times but also of its place (recognizing the particular character, quality, and materials of the Middlebury campus).
-An inviting nerve-center of varied information-related resources and services.
A building physically serving the long-term needs of the library.
-Assuring through unified housing, proper climate control, and security the conservation and integrity of a distinguished liberal arts library collection that is also relatively young and active (and thus important to maintain as accessible as possible to its users).
-Designed with maximum flexibility
-300 psf. floor loading to permit eventual installation of compact shelving.
-Access to technology throughout.
-Configured with a potential for efficient internal reorganization in response to inevitably changing patterns.
-Allowing for collection and user growth to serve an evolving curriculum, a growing student body, and a greater diversity of information sources.
-Planned for 15+ years of collection growth (e.g. c.184,000 books in the circulating collection by 2019 over a base at occupancy of c. 325,800) on fixed shelving and the potential of further growth through the phased installation of compact shelving. 1
-Providing for an expanded usership:
-733 seats to bring the College's cumulative library seating capacity to 38% of an enlarged student body of 2350. 2
A user-friendly building
-Straightforward physical accessibility to all parts of the building.
-Clarity of organization: an optimal arrangement with three visually linked stories entered at mid-level, with major public services on the entry level and collection and quiet study zones up and down.
-Ready access to support staff (reference, government documents, media, instructional technology, computer help desk, writing center).
-Provision for fixed shelving to maximize access to circulating collections.
-Distributed copier and printer stations.
-Security.
A building recognizing the changing character of information sources, storage, retrieval, and communication.
-Provide access to the full range of information sources.
-ITS Helpdesk and Administrative Computing;Writing Center; Instructional Technology; and Web Design.
-Media Resources Center – Film/Video library, media use stations, group viewing rooms, multimedia development labs.
-Site for one the College's three major campus data/network centers.
A building providing for the widest range of use .
-Technologically served user spaces accommodating individual and collaborative work: carrels (375) 3 ; lounge chairs (100); tables (120 seats); media use stations (24); group studies (8); group viewing rooms (4); faculty studies (10); and electronic classrooms (4) 4 .
-Designed as a "teaching instrument" as well as a storehouse: Instructional Technology, Writing Center, media booths, smart classrooms, computer-assisted learning spaces.
-Encouraging exchange and collaboration: student/student, student/faculty, student/staff, faculty/staff, staff/staff.
A building fostering efficiency.
-Providing for proximate staffing and services.
-Bringing together resources serving student and faculty research, writing, and presentation preparation.
-Bringing together staff in Library, ITS, IT, Media, and Writing Programs.
-Providing for orderly processing and management of collections.
-Durable in materials and efficient to maintain.
An environmentally sensitive and comfortable building.
-Planned with the goal of exceeding national environmental standards.
-Climate control with an admixture of outside air for year-round user comfort and collection conservation.
-Appropriate illumination, optimizing natural light.
-Environmentally sound choice of materials.
Using the Library
The library will be entered at mid-level through a spacious rotunda that opens to the heart of the building and provides clear views of the floors above and below. Major public services will be located on the entry level and collection and quiet study zones will be above and below.
The entry- and third-level floors will lead to mezzanines equipped with suites of study carrels in distinct, soundproofed groupings. Summer Language Schools will find these to be useful: Students of specific schools will be able to study together and practice speaking without disturbing others. Banks of windows in two traditional reading rooms will look toward stunning views, one of Old Stone Row and Mead Chapel, the other of Middlebury village and the Green Mountains beyond.
Among the services located on the entry level will be the reference and help desks, circulation and media desks, Writing Center, 24-hour study area, government documents and reference collection, microforms, media-viewing and development rooms, and Web-conference room. Students will have ready access to support staff in all areas.
Almost any activity related to study, research, or collaborative work can take place at the library at any time of the day and into the night. Students working together on a presentation about Martin Luther King, for example, might need recordings of King's speeches, video clips of significant events, primary source materials from the sixties, and even revisionist history demonstrating how other cultures have responded to King. In this library, they will be able to find abundant content in many formats; from the Web and from books and articles, and to get assistance in creating a multimedia presentation.
Imagine 24 hours in the new library
Students of the 21st Century
10:00 AM
In the Assisted Learning Suite
A student working on her senior thesis in history needs to study an essential journal article. Being visually impaired and unable to read printed text, she comes to the library where there are a variety of tools to help students with disabilities accomplish their goals. A staff assistant helps scan the article into a special computer that uses advanced software to convert the printed words to speech.
2:00 PM
In the Web-Conference Seminar Room
There's a heated debate about global economics taking place. A presenter in Salzburg, Austria, has made some challenging observations to which a professor in Middlebury responds. Students in both locations can hear and see the speakers, as well as one another, on a large screen. When the seminar opens for general questions, their individual comments are transmitted instantly to the other location.
8:00 PM
In the Writing Center
Peer writing tutors are on duty to help students who need assistance and feedback with writing assignments. A tutor reviews a complex paper with its author and suggest a different approach to citing sources. An international student, for whom English is a second language, brings in an essay for feedback about grammar and style.
Footnotes
1. This figure is based on the following assumptions: 1) a gradually diminishing growth rate in print collections, recognizing the likely increase in electronic acquisitions (a straight growth projection based on recent experience would anticipate an expansion of the collection by 201,500 volumes during the same time period); 2) shelf space figures based on actual experience and measurement in Starr (330 books/double faced shelf unit) rather than the standard library formula (250 books/dfs).
2. This takes into account the projected creation of other quiet study areas on campus in academic buildings and commons.
3. With interactive language study capability.
4. Intended to serve bibliographic, instructional technology, language school, and general campus instructional needs.