Web Exclusives:
Under the Ivy
a column by Jane Martin paw@princeton.edu
May
11, 2005:
A
‘labyrinth of dark stacks’
Some
not-so-fond memories of Pyne Library
Two striking pictures appear in the April 1, 1938, issue of PAW:
One shows two bookcases double-crammed with books and journals,
fronted by an enormous black pipe resting on a pile of brick; the
other, stacks upon stacks of bound volumes piled on shelves and
on the floor pressed up against a commercial-size vacuum cleaner.
Such was the state of Princeton’s library in the late 1930s.
A gift from Mrs. Percy Rivington Pyne, the mother of M. Taylor Pyne
1877, Pyne Library seemed spacious enough when it replaced Chancellor
Green Library in 1897. But a few decades later, students such as
Allen Whipple ’39 were desperate for more, and better, space.
“In every upperclass course,” Whipple wrote in PAW,
“reference books, placed on reserve, are included as part
of the required reading. Owing to an insufficient number of copies
– aggravated by an insufficient amount of space even in the
reserve desk – the time each student may be in possession
of any book may be, and usually is, rigidly restricted. Seniors
doing thesis work, juniors preparing departmental papers, spend
days in the labyrinth of dark stacks and quiet, noisy reading rooms.”
He tells of an athletic team at an away game hungrily devouring
their assignments in the other team’s spacious library, a
student who commuted to Columbia to use its library, professors
who guarded the location of their private research niches like state
secrets. “Books are stored all over town – in garrets,
basements, storerooms and dormitories,” Whipple complained.
“The time may come,” he added, “when we can
look back in amusement at the noise in the stacks, our insistent
demands for rubber-soled shoes and heels for the Lorelei, the ludicrous
hole in the earth called the Newspaper Room, the farcical Departmental
Seminars, our whimsical demands for compulsory flashlights and safety
patrols (we remember too vividly the time the lights went out while
we were on the top floor of the stacks and we had to stay where
we were until they were repaired, lest we fall down an unprotected
shaft in our gropings.) We can laugh when and only when the new
library is in use.”
(The reference to the Lorelei is unclear to this modern reader;
they must have been the female library staff who roamed the stacks
in irritatingly loud heels, perhaps earning their nickname for their
ability to distract the male students by their sound and, of course,
their sex.)
Though Whipple and his generation had to suffer, by 1949 the revolutionary
Harvey S. Firestone Library opened its doors. Named for the father
of its five principal donors, the library broke with the tradition
of buildings constructed chiefly to hold large collections of books,
with little thought for the user. Instead, notes the Princeton
Companion, Firestone sought “to bring books and readers
together, serving as a scholar’s workshop,” with its
innovative open stack system. Upon its 20-year anniversary, university
librarian William Dix explained to PAW that before World War II,
university libraries “were designed as symbols, located in
the center of campus and built to look like the Baths of Caracalla,
which is all well and good; but little attention was given to the
interior function.”
With the wails of Allen Whipple and his contemporaries still ringing
in their ears, the planners of Princeton’s modern library
– still vibrant today – made sure that submersion within
the library would be as satisfying as gazing upon it from without.
Jane Martin 89 is PAW's former editor-in-chief. You can
reach her at paw@princeton.edu
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