New Medical Library Buildings

III. The Library of Science & Medicine, Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey By JAMES W. BARRY, Librarian* Library of Science & Medicine Rutgers-The State University New Brunswick, New Jersey

ABSTRACT be practical, a similar function will be planned A new free-standing library building, designed into the building expansion expected within a to integrate the collections serving interdisciplinary few years. The present twenty-four-hour space study in science and medicine, is described. is readily adaptable. With the addition of an interior stairway it can be stacked out as ex- RUTGERS University's Library of Science & pansion space for the circulating book collec- Medicine was built to serve as the central sci- tion; the preferred use is as expansion stacks for entific resource collection for the university. It the adjacent special collections. In the latter on the University Heights Campus, a is located case, the present librarian's suite will become complex of graduate and professional science and for the curator of special distant from the main offices work space departments three miles collections. The special collections room campus. doubles as a scientific seminar room used for an inverted The building is roughly pyramid, campus and community group discussions on blunted at the ground floor apex. This design interdisciplinary topics. Lounge furniture in was in part by the committee require- dictated the permanent arrangement seats two entrances, with equal access from thirty-three, ment for and chairs expand the seating to the existing science departments and the medi- stacking seventy for more formal meetings. cal school planned for the adjacent corn field. The two upper floors house the general public The librarian insisted upon one entrance con- functions. Open space, adaptable space, was the trol point. This imposed design factor is de- the and the both because of the inclement winters, essential charge to architects, goal sirable was achieved. Reference, circulation, and serials with their toll in maintenance costs, and because main in the offices are the only closed off areas on the of the spatial requirements specified pro- here is achieved gram. floor. Even openness by having at wall in each office made as a series of the floor houses least one One segment ground oak cases technical operations, with vertical transport by of book separated by glass panels. Stacks, and one ingenious cork half-wall, only stair and elevator to the card catalog and bib- from The partially block the light and panorama liographic collection immediately above. windows which ring the entire floor. space on the opposite side of the entrance floor half of the with is divided into equal parts for two Reference occupies one floor, passageway the office and service desk centered in functions. A twenty-four-hour room public special the area, giving reference librarians right and opening off the pass-through lobby and outside and the book charging station is furnished only with left access to the reference book collection study tables and chairs. The twenty-four-hour indexes and abstracts. The card catalog is about room is an experiment. If the concept proves-to equidistant from reference and circulation ser- vice desks, directly off the lobby from the main * Mr. Barry was Librarian, Library of Science stairway. The lobby is an area rather than a & Medicine, October 1963 through April 1971. He now is Librarian, Arizona Medical Center, Tucson, room, partially blocked on one side by the free- Arizona. standing cork barrier. This divider displays a 574 Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 59 (4) Oct. 1971 LIBRARY OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE, RUTGERS

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FIG. 1. Library of Science and Medicine, Rutgers-the State University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. floor directory, and the remaining cork surface house bound serials. Rutgers is a U. S. Govern- serves as a bulletin board on the lobby side. ment Document Depository library and c&ilects The reverse side is an oak paneled alcove with extensively in other public documents. The con- compartments for public telephones and coin cept of a separate documents department was operated duplicating machines. Circulation carried over from the main library. Approxi- book collections and serials, office and display mately one-fourth of the top floor is the docu- area, take up the other half of this floor. There ments area, enclosed by wire screen set in at- is five foot high oak display shelving for 3,000 tractive oak framing. periodical titles. Pillars supporting the upside down base of Two side stairways are used for interior traffic the pyramid are inside the building on the top between the second and third floors. This is a floor on the long walls. These form natural desirable feature, since the stairways are both alcoves which are furnished as two person entirely within building control and provide two study stations in the open stack area. These access points to the largest floor, which is on alcoves provide stations for microform and the top. Other than a five station typing room limited audiovisual equipment within the docu- rescued out of architecturally dead space and ments cage. Movable wire caging is available to two ten person group study rooms, this floor close off as many as ten alcoves for limited time has only two enclosed areas. Photoduplication assigned study use. Pinwheel carrels and four- is a fully equipped laboratory with a nineteen place study tables are used in the documents foot counter for public service approach. Three department. On the narrow ends of the build- quarters of the upper floor space is used to ing, four-place carrels, high and wet, line the

Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 59 (4) Oct. 1971 575 JAMES W. BARRY walls. Four expanses of window break the solid Span and truss construction provides the walls of the top floor. The window areas are pillarless open space in the interior. Precast fumished as study spaces with casual furniture. concrete spans are left open, forming high Standing height oak counters, built into the arches or vaults in the ceiling. These exposed shallow alcoves formed by piers supporting the concrete arches carry the "high hat" indirect interior span construction, are popular with lighting fixtures and air-conditioning ducts. Re- readers. Individual, dispersed seating is empha- cessed, baffled, fluorescent direct lighting is used sized throughout the building. in areas with hung ceilings, while selected areas

FIG. 2. Lobby, third floor

FIG. 3. Indexes and abstracts, main floor

576 Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 59 (4) Oct. 1971 LIBRARY OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE, RUTGERS

Fio. 4. Current periodicals are treated with luminous fluorescents above braries. In the early summer of 1971 the Col- decorative egg crate ceilings. It is fitting to com- lege of Pharmacy collection of over 25,000 ment that library users voluntarily express their volumes will be integrated with the Library of appreciation not only for a well lighted library Science & Medicine holdings and begin to exert but also for the complement the lighting pro- pressure on the 200,000 volume capacity. Minor vides to the subtleness of architectural design. encroachment on capacity and program space The exterior finish is rose brick, and support- occurred when, in the final stage of planning, ing brick piers are an architectural feature. The the architectural module was reduced from a vertical piers are cut horizontally by glass nine foot to an eight foot center; design suffered around the recessed first and second floors. more in that respect, but program space and Alternating horizontal bands of brick and lime- placement of certain facilities found effective stone enclose the top floor, relieved by four relationships reduced. symmetrical glass areas in the expanse of flush The need for early expansion was known and brick wall. Brick is carried over generously was discussed seriously during the initial plan- into the interior where it contrasts pleasantly ning. Several essential points are worth noting: with the abundant white oak casework and the documents department is expected to move wood trim. Inevitably cement block is present, onto the second floor, with reference, indexes but off-white paint complements the earthtones and abstracts, and documents forming a unit; and accent colors of the decor. White stacks current serials, work space, and display, will with oak end panels are used throughout the move onto the expanded bound serials floor; main floor. Relief from the monotony of bound circulating books space will double by taking serials on the upper floor is provided by white over the present current serials area; and, as metal end panels and beige shelves. mentioned earlier, special collections will use The building opened in September 1970 with the present twenty-four-hour room as stack over 120,000 volumes, not including govern- space. Traditional library programs, thereby, ment documents. Life sciences, broadly inter- will remain on the upper two floors. The ground preted, represented 90,000 volumes of the ini- floor expansion is adaptable either for a re- tial holdings. The imbalance is explained in part located twenty-four-hour room or as space for by the fact that physics and physical chemistry whatever audiovisual facilities are then con- collections are housed in nearby branch li- sidered appropriate to library functions. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 59 (4) Oct. 1971 577 JAMES W. BARRY

ARCHITECTURAL SUMMARY Architects ...... Warner, Burns, Toan & Lunde, New York City Mechanical Engineers... Kallen & Lemelson, New York City Interior Designer...... Edith Queller, New York City Gross square footage. 87,737 Construction Cost.. $2,628,323 Cost per Sq. Ft...... $30 Seating...... 470 public; 33 scientific seminar (70 in formal arrangement). Volume capacity. 209,000 volumes Furniture & movable equipment.. $279,202. Design Group, Inc. (wooden tables & carrels); Gunlocke Company, Inc. (chairs); C. 1. Designs, Thonet Industries, Inc. (casual furniture); Warner, Burns, Toar & Lunde (special built-ins). Funding...... $1,494,500 New Jersey Bond Issue 730,126 HEW Title II Grant 541,293 NLM Construction Grant 312,206 Other

Total Proiect Cost. $3,078,125

Instances of failure in library automation are not often discussed publicly, let alone published, for neither personal nor institutional pride favors a public display of dis- affection. As a result library literature does not usually mention the possibility of fail- ure except when an author sets out to prove that library automation is not possible. Friends in the computer center tell me that a similar reluctance to discuss failure exists in other areas of automation as well. -Lawrence Auld. Preventing Failure in Library Automation. Proc. 1968 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing. Urbana, Univ. Ill. Grad. Sch. Libr. Sci., 1969. p. 29.

578 Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 59 (4) Oct. 1971