Cambridge University Libraries: A Personal Tour Arthur M Lesk 2002 ‘Among those venerable galleries and solitary scenes of the university, I wanted but a black gown, and a salary, to be as mere a bookworm as any of these.’ Alexander Pope ‘Some people use books as they use Lords – they memorize their titles and boast of their acquaintance’. Jonathan Swift 1 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. The University Library 3. The Wren Library of Trinity College 4. The Science Periodicals Library and the Betty and Gordon Moore Library 5. The Pepys Library at Magdalene College 6. The Library of Gonville and Caius College 7. The Shackleton Memorial Library of the Scott Polar Research Institute 8. The Seely Historical Library 9. The Squire Law Library 10. The Medical Library 11. Conclusions This essay was written almost 20 years ago. Many things have changed. However, I have decided not to try to bring it up to date, but to let it stand as a snapshot of a transitional moment. 2 Introduction Approaching Cambridge by bicycle from the West – perhaps from one of the outlying towns of Barton or Coton – the first visible landmarks of the University are King’s College Chapel and the tower of the main University Library building, appropriate symbols of the spirit and the mind. The University Library, called The Ewe-Ell, is the queen bee in the system of libraries that pervades Cambridge. There are 114 Department, College and associated libraries in the hive. (Outside the University are numerous municipal and industrial libraries, libraries in schools and churches, numerous bookshops including stalls in the marketplace, plus many per- sonal collections visible in private houses through curtained windows in the evening. These are beyond the scope of our discussion, but let us conclude that a book need have no fear of feeling lonely in Cambridge.) Libraries are undergoing a transition, as the the World-Wide Web mounts a very serious challenge to printed books, magazines and newspapers as the mecha- nism for archiving and delivering information. The Web has immediate implications for the design of libraries, and may ultimately threaten their very existence. The active programme of library building and renovation of the University of Cambridge presents an interesting set of case studies in the reaction of architects and academic institutions to this new library world. One observes a Darwinian process of ex- ploration of variations, with selection of preferred designs according to the current state of selective pressures. For although the University coordinates library policy, it would be inappropriate to suggest that there is strict central planning, as colleges and departments are filled with rugged individualists: unquiet flow the dons. Indeed, it may be useful to describe briefly the structure and administration of the University of Cambridge. The university is a federation of colleges. The colleges have primary responsibility for undergraduate admission and teaching, and for providing residences and meals for students and teaching faculty. Like other federations – notably the United States of America – there is a certain degree of tension between the federation and its components. In Cambridge, the colleges call the tune, primarily because the University is financially dependent on them. Some of the colleges are among the wealthiest institutions in the United Kingdom. In many disciplines, such as literature, undergraduate teaching may be almost entirely self- contained within a college. However, it is unreasonable for each college to support an elementary chemistry laboratory, or to support its own facilities for advanced research. Therefore individual disciplines have their own departments, or faculties, such as the Departments of English, or Chemistry, or Architecture and the History of Art, etc., that cut across college boundaries. The colleges and the departments form the warp and the woof of the fabric of the university. The administration of the university has, at its top, the office of Chancel- lor, a real but primarily honourary post, currently (now, formerly) held by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The actual chief executive officer is the Vice Chancellor. He or she presides over a network of committees, syndicates and boards, each of which comprises representatives of colleges and departments. A committee would typically deal with simple bread-and-butter matters. A syndicate is a grander affair. Many syndicates are responsible for important and continuing university issues; for 3 instance, the Library Syndicate has been in existence since 1748. Still more vital decisions – the equivalent of declaring war – are handled by Boards. The classic parody about university administration is unquestionably F.M. Cornford’s 1908 satire Microcosmographia Academica. For a taste of the style of this book, consider: The most important branch of political activity is, of course, closely connected with jobs. These fall into two classes, My Jobs and Your Jobs. My Jobs are public-spirited proposals, which happen (much to my regret) to involve the advancement of a personal friend or (still more to my regret) of myself. Your Jobs are insidious intrigues for the advancement of yourself and your friends, speciously disguised as public-spirited proposals. ... we should meet casually. The proper course to pursue is to walk, between 2 and 4 p.m., up and down the King’s Parade, and more par- ticularly that part of it which lies between the Colleges of Pembroke and Caius. When we have succeeded in meeting accidentally, it is etiquette to talk about indifferent matters for ten minutes and then part. After walk- ing five paces in the opposite direction, you should call me back, and begin with the words, ‘Oh, by the way, if you should happen ...’ The nature of Your Job must then be vaguely indicated, without mentioning names, and it should be treated by both parties as a matter of very small importance. You should hint that I am a very influential person, and that the whole thing is a secret between us. Then we shall part as before, and I shall call you back and introduce the subject of My Job, in the same formula. By observing this procedure we shall emphasise the fact that there is no con- nection whatever between my supporting your Job and your supporting mine ... Remember this: the men who get things done are the men who walk up and down King’s Parade, from 2 to 4, every day of their lives. You can either join them, and become a powerful person, or you can join the great throng of those who spend all their time in preventing them from getting things done, and in the larger task of preventing one another from doing anything whatever. This book was an unusual but not unique departure for Cornford, – a serious scholar at Trinity College – from his writings on Greek literature, philosophy and religion. Indeed, most of the book is somewhat more subtle than the quoted passage. The colleges of course have their own administrations, headed (in almost all cases) by the Master, an office made familiar by the novels of C.P. Snow. Each college has many individual facilities of its own, including one or more libraries. Indeed, the main University Library collection was never designed for undergraduate teaching. Undergraduates (unless escorted by a graduate) were actually barred from the main library after 1472 for ‘abusing its contents’, and not allowed back until 1875. Many colleges even have two libraries – a historical collection with old and rare books, and a modern teaching collection. These exist side by side – often literally, as in Trinity College, which houses the seventeenth-century Wren Library and a contemporary 4 library next door to each other. In some cases an original library has been renovated, often with space set aside as a retirement community for the older books. These decisions about how to organise and design library space provide my subject. How are the libraries in the Cambridge University system reacting to computers in general and electronic information sources in particular? This article addresses the situation from the point of view of a reader. What is it like to work in the different libraries – what used to be call the atmosphere and is now referred to as the ‘look and feel’ aspects of the physical environment? It is possible to observe trends and developments by examining a series of libraries as they exist now? In lectures to general audiences, Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees poses the question of how he and his colleagues can study the evolution of stars, when all that is available to us is an instantaneous snapshot of processes that take billions of years. His answer is that it is no harder than deducing the life history of a tree from studying the state of a forest at a single moment: by comparing examples of young, middle-aged, and elderly individuals, one can write the biography of a single tree. Similarly, the University of Cambridge presents libraries that have been constucted or renovated during the period of change; each is a snapshot of the facilities available and expectations justifiable at the moment of design (in some cases with some subsequent renovation). From the aggregate we can see the process unfolding. Moreover, knowing fairly well what progress in digital information storage and distribution can be expected, can we extrapolate to the future of libraries? How will library design continue to adapt to new technology? What form, if any, will the library of the future take? (Recently the main library of Harvard University, Widener Library – in the ‘other’ Cambridge – needed a complete overhaul of its structural integrity. A member of the consultative committee pointed out that it would be cost- effective to dig a hole in the ground somewhere out in the Massachusetts countryside, scan in all the books, and provide them over computer networks to the readers on campus; freeing the library site for other purposes.