More than one million visitors a year stream through the doors of Olin Library, located in the heart of Cornell’s campus. Like any 46-year-old facility, Olin is in need of an upgrade to meet the scholarship demands of a modern university and to resolve serious life-safety and environmental issues. When approval to proceed with the renovation planning was given by Cornell’s Capital Funding and Priorities Committee, the Olin Renovation Planning Committee let out a collective sigh of relief.
The results of a survey conducted by the planning committee reinforced the changes being proposed and many of the goals set forth in the university's master plan. The renovation of Olin, which was designed as a closed-stack library before computers became an integral part of research and instruction, is intended to meet new curriculum needs and the changing research and study habits of faculty and students by bringing it into the digital age.
"Just as we have deferred maintenance on the environmental systems, we are overdue on providing programmatic upgrades to support the way faculty and students conduct research and learn," said Interim University Librarian Anne R. Kenney. "We risk losing top students and faculty to other universities the longer we delay on meeting their stated needs."
The renovation plan is currently in the design development for a multi-phased project, beginning on floors three through eight with work scheduled to begin in the summer of 2009. Each floor would be renovated in a manner to vertically signal the space use—the higher one goes the more intensive the commitment to research becomes. The lower floors would offer a combination of stacks, open and group study rooms. The upper ones would be more devoted to support research than study, with more space devoted to individual and group offices, private studies/carrels, and subject reading rooms. Advantage would be taken of the views from the 6th floor—particularly those on the west side of the building, for quiet study/contemplation space. The seventh floor will take advantage of the stunning views overlooking Cayuga Lake and the Arts Quad and be dedicated to the establishment of a Research Commons to support the needs of faculty, graduate students, and upper class undergraduates conducting serious research.
Besides scholarship needs, a compelling reason for Olin's renovation is its lack of sprinklers and smoke detectors and its antiquated heating and cooling system, all of which threaten the library's users and collections. Fire is an obvious concern, but the building's constant temperature and humidity fluctuations also have a negative effect on the library's print volumes, acutely shortening their life spans and escalating the need for costly preservation in the future.
