Welcome from the University Librarian
This website it designed to keep you informed of the plans and schedule for renovating the John M. Olin Library. Built when 3x5 cards were cutting edge research tools and long before the card catalog became an online resource, Olin Library will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2011. Like many buildings of that vintage, it is due—past due, really—for an extensive renovation. Plans to upgrade the facility are based on three distinct needs:
- Life safety. The lack of even a basic fire suppression capability poses a serious threat to users and collections alike. Olin’s 53 miles of shelving, housing over 2 million volumes, are not protected by a sprinkler system. Indeed, given the quantity and replacement value of the collections this vulnerability has driven the university’s insurance premiums to unprecedented levels and even impacted their ability to secure secondary carriers for the self-insured campus.
- Environmental control. As one of the first totally enclosed environments, Olin’s humidity, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system hasn’t functioned properly for over two decades. On any given day, the temperatures can fluctuate by twenty degrees, with parts of the building reporting temperatures in the 60s and others up into the 90s. This makes it a difficult place to work and seriously threatens the longevity of the collection.
- Support for learning, teaching, and research. Just as we have deferred maintenance on the environmental systems, we are overdue on providing programmatic upgrades to support research and learning. Much has changed in the way students and faculty work in the past 50 years. When Olin opened in 1961 the “tower” (floors 3-7) was a closed-stack space and it would be 25 years before the first computers became integral to our work. It’s not surprising, then, that most graduate carrels lack outlets and that some students have resorted to bringing in 25’ extension cords to plug in their laptops. There is a critical need for spaces for quiet study, collaborative work, technology support, research, and writing. Cornell risks losing top students and faculty to other universities that have moved more quickly to meet their needs.
The first phase of Olin renovation will center on floors 3-8. We expect to begin construction in early summer 2009. Between now and then, we welcome your thoughts through focus groups or more informal channels, such as the renovation planning committee's email box, RenovateOlinLibrary@cornell.edu. I look forward to hearing from you and invite you to follow the progress of Olin’s renovation on this website.
Anne R. Kenney
Carl A. Kroch University Librarian
