Dedication of new $40 million library to take place October 8th
MIDDLEBURY, Vt.-Middlebury College will dedicate its new $40 million library at a ceremony on the library lawn at 12:15 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 8. Vartan Gregorian, president of the
Carnegie Corporation of New York and former president of the New York Public Library and Brown University, will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree and deliver remarks. In conjunction with the dedication, a symposium and dance performances will take place. Coinciding with the dedication and the related festivities will be the inauguration of Middlebury College’s 16th president, Ronald D. Liebowitz, at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 10. All events are free and open to the public.
Dean of Library and Information Sciences Barbara Doyle-Wilch said, “The new library is an exquisite resource and will dramatically change the academic work of the campus. We can now offer, in one central location, all the resources necessary to support the rigor and creativity of teaching and learning, making the library the intellectual hub of the College.”
Prior to Gregorian’s talk at the dedication ceremony, there will be brief remarks by representatives of several Middlebury College constituencies, including Doyle-Wilch. Professor of Political Science Eric Davis will make comments as a representative of the faculty, Systems Librarian Mike Lynch will speak on behalf of the staff, and a student, senior Cicely Ott, will also offer remarks. Liebowitz and President Emeritus and College Professor John M. McCardell Jr., under whose administration the planning for the library and its construction took place, will speak as well.
In honor of the dedication, flags from the approximately 70 countries represented within the College’s student body will be mounted on the upper face of the library’s western wall.
The week of the library dedication will mark the beginning of a year-long series of activities called “Ways with Words: A Celebration of Libraries.” The first of these events is a lecture titled “American Wilderness Narratives: Doubling the Last Survivor” by Middlebury College Professor of Humanities John P. McWilliams Jr. at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 5. Williams’ talk, part of the Abernethy Lecture Series, will take place in the Harman Periodical Reading Room.
As part of the “Ways with Words” series and in conjunction with the dedication, the 2004 Nicholas R. Clifford Symposium, “The Technology of the Word,” will feature lectures and a panel discussion on Oct. 6-7 and Oct. 9. The first of the three symposium events is a talk by Janet Murray titled “The Future of Storytelling in the Digital Age” that will take place Wednesday, Oct. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in Dana Auditorium in Sunderland Language Center on College Street (Route 125). Murray is professor and director of graduate studies for the Georgia Institute of Technology Information Design and Technology Program. She is also the author of “Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of the Narrative in Cyberspace.”
On Thursday, Oct 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Dana Auditorium, Siva Vaidhyanathan will discuss “Copyrights and Copywrongs: Innovation and Intellectual Property in a Digital Age.” Vaidhyanathan is the author of a book by the same title as well as “The Anarchist in the Library.” He is also assistant professor and director of the program in communication studies in culture and communication, an undergraduate program, at New York University. A panel discussion with guest lecturers and Middlebury faculty and staff will follow his talk.
Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey, Siegel and Associates, the New York-based architecture firm that designed the library, will give the final lecture of the symposium, “The Architecture of the Middlebury College Library,” at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 9, in the Harman Periodical Reading Room.
More information about the symposium speakers and their talks is available on the College’s Web site at http://segue.middlebury.edu/index.php?&action=site&site=clifford2004.
Dance company Project Bandaloop will help mark the library’s dedication by performing on the façade of the new building several times from Oct. 8-Oct. 10. The first of those performances will take place at 2 p.m. following the library’s dedication. The company’s members suspend themselves from buildings, cliffs and mountains throughout the world to create dances and films. The complete schedule of Project Bandaloop’s residency at Middlebury College, which takes place from Oct. 4-12 and also includes master classes, lectures and film showings, is available on the College’s Web site at http://www.middlebury.edu/arts/calendar/0405/october_04.htm.
Additional events taking place on Oct. 8 following the dedication ceremony include a performance by the Atlantic Crossing Band of music from the Middlebury College Library’s Flanders Ballad Collection. The band will perform at 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. in the library’s
Harman Periodical Reading Room. At 4:30 p.m. on the same day, the dedication of “The Garden of the Seasons,” a sculpture and surrounding garden area created by artist Michael Singer and located adjacent to the library, will take place.
“Ways with Words” festivities will continue at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 9, at a showing of the film “Stone Reader” in Dana Auditorium. Part of the Hirschfield International Film Series, this 2002 documentary follows a reader’s pilgrimage in search of a vanished book. Writer-director Mark Moskowitz becomes enthralled with Dow Mussman’s novel, “The Stones of Summer,” 25 years after its publication. His quest to learn more sends him on an investigation of the troubled lives and hard times of serious writers, until his final confrontation with the author.
The New Library
The new library is located on Storrs Avenue between Routes 125 and 30 on the site of the College’s former science center. Construction began on the 140,000 square foot building in the spring of 2002. As the library neared completion in late May of this year, a professional moving company undertook a massive task?moving nearly one million books, journals and other items from the former library to the new building, which opened on June 28. Seventy employees moved from seven different buildings on campus to work in the new library.
According to Nan Jenks-Jay, Middlebury College director of environmental affairs, College administrators and architects worked together to ensure that environmental considerations and energy efficiency were incorporated into the design and construction. One such feature is a system of light sensors that measures the amount of available natural light, and then either dims or brightens the lights as needed. The library’s environmentally sound building materials include 11,000 board feet of local certified maple and beech wood. To be certified, wood must meet standards that conform to sustainable forest management practices. Approximately 70 percent of this wood was harvested from forest land at the College’s Bread Loaf campus in Ripton. Additional information about the library’s sustainable features is available on the College’s Web site at /NR/rdonlyres/3EC4CF4F-5BB3-4EA2-9B9E-362A0EDB5E29/0/sust_features.pdf.
Each of the library’s three main levels are approximately one acre in size. The top two floors have mezzanines as well.
The main level, which includes a café and 24-hour study area near its entrance, features a central information desk; circulation services; reference desk and collection; computing help desk and educational technology; 30-seat lecture hall; 18-seat seminar room equipped for video conferencing; two video viewing rooms with 12 seats each; a large video editing lab; 32 individual carrels equipped for viewing videos in VHS or DVD format; 36 independent study seats, each with a computer; eight public access catalog locations; two large study tables wired for network access; eight microfilm reader-printers; government documents; microfilms and microfiche; a portion of the circulating collection; and many staff offices. Also on the main level is the College’s Center for Teaching, Learning and Research, which offers students, faculty and staff assistance with writing, computing, technology and other services.
The bulk of the circulating collection is on the upper and lower levels. The lower level also houses staff offices and work areas, two classrooms, a reading room, a large meeting room, four group study areas, current and bound periodicals, the Vermont collection, and special collections, which features a reading room, display cases, and archival storage.
The library’s total seating capacity-including classrooms, computer-media carrels, study carrels, and group study rooms-accommodates 30 percent of the College’s student population. All seating locations are wired for power and data. There are 298 individual study carrels distributed throughout the building, many in four tower-like structures on the north face of the building and along the south side of the building on the upper level and mezzanine. The carrels offer views of the old Starr Library and the Green Mountains. Two reading rooms on the upper level offer views of the Green Mountains to the east, and the central campus to the west.
“Ways with Words: A Celebration of Libraries” Events Calendar:
Tuesday, Oct. 5
4:30 p.m. “American Wilderness Narratives: Doubling the Last Survivor”
John P. McWilliams Jr., Professor of Humanities
Abernethy Lecture Series
Harman Periodical Reading Room, new library, Storrs Ave., off College
St. (Rte. 125)
Wednesday, Oct. 6
7:30 p.m. Lecture: “The Future of Storytelling in the Digital Age”
Janet Murray, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies,
Georgia Institute of Technology
Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center, College St. (Rt. 125)
Thursday, Oct. 7
7:30 p.m. Lecture: “Copyrights and Copywrongs: Innovation and Intellectual Property in a Digital Age”
Siva Vaidhyanathan, Assistant Professor, New York University
Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center, College St. (Rt. 125)
Friday, Oct. 8
12:15 p.m. New Library Dedication
Remarks by Vartan Gregorian
President, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Library Lawn, Storrs Ave., off College St. (Route 125)
2 p.m. Project Bandaloop Performance
The company’s members suspend themselves from buildings, cliffs and mountains throughout the world to create dances and films.
South wall of new library, Storrs Ave., off College St. (Rte. 125)
2:30 and 3:30 p.m. Atlantic Crossing Band
Performing music from Middlebury College’s Flanders Ballad Collection
Harman Periodical Reading Room, new library, Storrs Ave., off College St. (Rte. 125)
4:30 p.m. Dedication of “Garden of the Seasons”
Sculpture by artist Michael Singer
South side of new library, Storrs Ave., off College St. (Rte. 125)
Saturday, Oct. 9
11 a.m. Lecture: “The Architecture of the Middlebury College Library”
Charles Gwathmey
Gwathmey Siegel and Associates Architects
Harman Periodical Reading Room, new library, Storrs Ave., off College St. (Rte. 125)
2 and 4 p.m. Project Bandaloop Performance
The company’s members suspend themselves from buildings, cliffs and mountains throughout the world to create dances and films.
South wall of new library, Storrs Ave., off College St. (Rte. 125)
8 p.m. “Stone Reader”
Hirschfield International Film Series
This documentary follows a reader’s pilgrimage in search of a vanished book. Writer-director Mark Moskowitz becomes enthralled with Dow Mussman’s novel, “The Stones of Summer,” 25 years after its publication. His quest to learn more sends him on an investigation of the troubled lives and hard times of serious writers, until his final confrontation with the author. (U.S., 2002, 127 minutes)
Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center, College St. (Rt. 125)
Sunday, Oct. 10
2 and 4 p.m. Project Bandaloop Performance
The company’s members suspend themselves from buildings, cliffs and mountains throughout the world to create dances and films.
South wall of new library, Storrs Ave., off College St. (Rte. 125)
All events are free and open to the public. For more information about Project Bandaloop, contact the Middlebury College Box Office at 802-443-6433. For information about all other events, contact the Middlebury College Library and Information Services Office at 802-443-5490.