Paul Willis, Dean of Libraries, University of South Carolina

142nd ARL Membership Meeting
Program Session I
May 15, 2003

I must resist the inclination to welcome you to Lexington and the University of Kentucky as I no longer work here, but I spent 36 years as a librarian at Kentucky; nearly 30 of them as director and for over 10 of those 30 years, working with others on the programming, fund-raising, design, and construction of the building which most of you saw last night. I bring a 10 month perspective from the University of South Carolina where the first free-standing library building on an American campus was constructed in 1840, and it remains in use as a library.

I need to make a couple of initial points. When one builds a personal residence, as I did this past year, it is necessary to compromise only with one’s spouse. When one builds a library on a university campus, it is necessary to compromise with many people. The president thought that the library building was his project, as did the University architect and the project manager from the University’s design and construction unit – and it continues.

The Kentucky building program was issued in 1992, and the programming took place the previous two years. The design then took about two years and construction from 1994 to 1998. The building has been open for five years. Construction started nine years ago, and the programming started 13 years ago. The old central library consisted of a 1931 fixed-stack building with a 1963 addition on the back and a “Stuart Forth” 1974 addition on the front. This complex had maximum inflexibility and simply did not function well. (40 thousand square feet of the 1974 addition was renovated for a fine arts library which opened in 2000. The 1931 building houses Special Collections and it awaits renovation funds, and the 1963 addition is scheduled to become a science library following renovation.) In simple terms, we wanted first, a building that would work well as a research library. I had visions of reinventing the research library in the digital environment - but settled for just moving in that direction. I described the project to the more than 10,000 people I spoke to about it during our fund-raising stage as “a state-of-the-art library for the 21st century,” and I used this expression without definition more times than Clinton used “bridge to the 21st century.” We chose not to abandon those features which made libraries important places in the past, yet we incorporated a communications infrastructure and other features which I hope will serve the University well over time. A number of directions were clear in 1990 - for some issues there were trends, and in a number of areas we faced continual change and a degree of uncertainty (e.g., wireless; Gardner Group).

• I knew that we did not want a book warehouse. We had many volumes that would be quite happy in storage in the old building.
• I knew that we wanted an environment where our users would want to come.
• I knew that we needed space for computers and related technology, but I did not think it wise to duplicate much of the University’s central computing center.
• I knew that communications technology was critical and that it would likely change many times during the life of the building. There are 50 small communications closets in the building rather than a central communications room and this gives great flexibility. Network connections and power are at every reading station.
• I knew that we wanted as much flexibility in the building as possible and the University architect reminded me constantly that flexibility in design often comes at a price.
• I knew that we needed collaborative work/study space for students as well as bibliographic instruction rooms.
• Michael McKinnell (the principal design architect), whom you met last night, reminded us that people like to work in pleasant and comfortable surroundings and that they like natural light.
• I knew that people want to be in a safe environment.
• The University wanted to make a statement with the building.

In seeking support, we stressed the state-wide mission of the library and the level of remote access to our collections and the volume of state interlibrary loan activities. Before we had a major donor, the project was called Commonwealth Library. After the quilt collection received some national attention, we became somewhat of a tourist attraction. The following experience was repeated in different ways. I asked an older couple in the lobby one day if I might help them and learned that they were traveling from Minnesota to Florida, heard about the quilt collection on NPR, and decided to stop.

Robert Putnum, of Harvard, in a book published in 2000 entitled Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community presents the view that the U.S. is suffering from a breakdown of civic and social ties; he suggests we are less likely to join groups than in the past. Some see an erosion of the sense of community on our campuses. Students who have no affiliation with any university organization are “bowling alone.” Do we want to bring 18 year olds to campus to sit in a dorm room working alone on a PC? If not, what are the alternatives?

It seems to me that the library as community – or the campus commons - is very important although we all are aware of the statistics which document the rapid advance of remote use of our collections and services. I believe that remote use is in no way a substitute for the “library as a place.” Are we to be satisfied with the closest that we come to being one university community is on fall Saturday afternoons in the stadium or in the basketball arena in the winter? How does the spending on athletic facilities on our campuses compare to the spending on library facilities?

During the fund-raising stage of the building project, I had to answer repeated questions which went something like: “Why build a library when everything is on the computer?” As I formulated responses to those questions, I talked about the need for an academic gathering place for students. That is what I sought to achieve. We all know that there are skills in addition to intellectual ones which students need to be successful and the ability to work well with others is one of them. Do we believe, as Robert Putnam suggests (p.19), that social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups? The properly designed library can be one of the places where both formal and informal collaborative working space is provided to all with supporting technology and information resources. We need to provide more than quiet study areas and group study rooms.

I believe that the openness of the building, which allows groups to form casually, is critical to the success of the building. Students run into colleagues from class and the building is large enough that they can find easily a place to work and study together.

How many times have you left a meeting such as this one with the most valuable time being the informal conversations in the corridors, the unplanned lunch or dinner or other ad hoc discussions with colleagues? The WTYL provides an environment for students to have similar exchanges with other students and based on my observations and conversations with students, I believe that this is a great draw for them to the building. The open offices reflect an attempt to provide collaborative working space for staff.

As Provost Nietzel suggested last night, the new library became a source of pride for the University community. The meeting rooms – especially the 150 seat auditorium – were in constant use for University events and college or faculty-sponsored activities. During the early days, I would check often with groups setting up meetings, receptions, etc. I was more cautious after the serious response I received one day to my question if the luncheon set-up was OK was: “Does the library have any mustard?”

The building project captured attention throughout the state and one of our volunteer fund-raisers said that he wanted to see if Kentuckians could “bond to a book as well as a basketball.” Perhaps the growth of the endowment suggests a positive reply.

One measure of the success of the building, especially with Mr. Young, is the resulting book endowment drive. Mr. Young was so pleased with the finished building that in his remarks at the dedication, he offered to lead a book endowment campaign and the library’s endowment, as he mentioned last night, now stands at over $60 million. Over time, the book endowment will likely be more critical to the success of the University libraries than the building.

I believe that the library has been more successful for undergraduates than for graduate students or faculty. There are underutilized faculty studies in the building and graduate students make extensive use of the graduate student study rooms, but I believe that perhaps other things could have been done to focus on faculty and graduate student needs and interests - to cause them - if you will, to come to the library rather than going to Amazon.com. During the first couple of years that the building was open, I only needed to walk through the library at night to see most of the 3,000 general seats filled with students - many of them working in small groups - to reassure myself of its usefulness. We did create an academic gathering place – at least for students.