Project on hold

There’s irony — not tragic but pointed — in the new Sawyer Library going the way of the old.   First in having fiscal difficulties delay its construction, and second in having its future called into doubt by a presidential transition.  This is a tale of two letters written by Morty Schapiro, sent by email to the Williams community, one in October outlining the College’s response to the global financial meltdown, and this month’s announcing his own imminent departure to assume the presidency of Northwestern.  The first brought news of the hold — perhaps one year but who really knows? — on construction of the new library, and the second means that some currently unknown person will be leading the decision to go forward when the time comes.  In several ways, it’s 1972 all over again.

 

The delay in completion of the Stetson-Sawyer Project does not imply abandonment of this online journal, but it does stretch out the timeline and remove some urgency.  In between the two communications from President Schapiro, I had a conversation with Dave Pilachowski, College Librarian, and found him still hopeful, even a little grateful for the breathing room the delay offered, to complete planning and preparation.  The architects were busily preparing immensely-detailed construction drawings, useful to have before the bidding process.  Asbestos abatement was going forward in Stetson, a necessary prelude to construction.  Historic appeals were in process on the disposition of the Seeley and Kellogg houses, which would have to be moved or razed as part of the project.  The overall design of the new library was not being reconsidered, but rather the administration was just waiting for the cost of money to come down, in the wake of the overall credit crunch. 

Update as of 4-30-09 :  Here’s a link to a communication from Professor Michael F. Brown, co-chair of the Stetson-Sawyer Project, which indicates current status of building plans.

Sawyer history posted

As the big brick box of the old Sawyer Library enters its final phase — as a blank obstruction squeezed between the striking new academic buildings — it is destined to make way for an open quadrangle, which will pass between those new faculty offices and lead to the entrance of Stetson Hall, gateway to the new Sawyer Library.  This moment between incarnations is a good place to reconsider the biography of the building, its birth and its fate, its assets and liabilities.  Like each of Williams’ libraries, Sawyer typifies an era in the history of the College, and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that its tearing down will mark a new era.  Before the infamous “bunker” comes down, let’s recall, in a bit of preemptive nostalgia, its war stories — the trials, the triumphs, the ultimate obsolescence.  Find the story here.

 

Beyond any specific quotations within the text, I wish to acknowledge my sources for this story.  As usual, my first recourse was to Whit Stoddard’s Reflections on the Architecture of Williams College and R. Craigin Lewis’s Williams 1793-1993: A Pictorial History, but the Sawyer story was brought to life for me by interviews with a number of eyewitnesses to its creation, including former President of the College John Chandler, Professors John Hyde, EJ Johnson, and Charles Fuqua, as well as current College Librarian Dave Pilachowski.  Sylvia Kennick Brown and Linda Hall of the College Archives were helpful to me in unlocking the riches of the Williams Oral History Project, conducted by Charles Alberti, as well as the online sources to which I link in the body of the text.  The files of the Williams Record were also valuable, especially coverage of the controversy that raged over the building throughout the Spring of 1973, when nearly every issue of what was then called the RecordAdvocate added fuel to the fire.  Last but not least, College reference librarian Nick Baker provided most of the photos illustrating the text.  Thanks to all.

 

 

Midsummer update

Thanks to Michael Brown, professor of anthropology and co-chair of the Stetson/Sawyer Project building committee, I was able recently to tag along on a tour of the soon-to-open North and South Academic Buildings, and I found them breathtaking, both in contrast to the old warren of faculty offices in Stetson and in forecast of what the architects — Bohlin Cywinski Jackson — will do in the New Sawyer Library.  As soon as the finishing touches are complete and faculty starts to move in before the start of the school year, I will go back with a camera and post an illustrated report here.

 

Meanwhile, the Library Shelving Facility is filling up off Route 7 North, with all the Library collections formerly shelved in the old Stetson stacks, as well as the collections of the College Archives and Chapin Library.  In September the Archives and Chapin will re-open in a limited capacity in temporary quarters in the old Southworth School, for the duration of construction of the new library, planned for 2011 opening.

 

I am currently engaged with research and interviews on the building of the old Sawyer Library, and hope to compose an entertaining and informative history in the next fortnight.  Now that I am incorporating first person testimony, I will want to run my copy past a number of those involved before posting here, so there may be a delay.  Earlier this week I had a most enjoyable conversation with President Emeritus John Chandler, whose appointment was announced simultaneously with the publication of plans for the new library in 1973, so he was well-positioned to offer a unique perspective on the controversy over the building.  I have also been in touch with one of the leaders of a student movement against those plans, whose well-reasoned objections were the focus of campus debate throughout the spring of 1973, some of which seem prophetic now that the building is to be demolished.

 

In the meantime, I have been groping toward a better integration of text and pictures on this website.  I suspect that few readers were following the graphic links, so from now on I will incorporate thumbnails within the text itself, which can be clicked to see photographs at full size.  Retroactively, I am in the process of changing the look of prior posts and pages.  I welcome feedback and suggestions to:  ssatullo@clarkart.edu.

History of Stetson now online

Maybe you’re like me, walking in and out of Stetson Hall hundreds of times without ever noticing for whom the building was named.  But with my newfound interest in Williams history, I was amused and intrigued to discover that Francis Lynde Stetson, Class of 1867, was J.P. Morgan’s lawyer, among many other attributes of success, and became a principle benefactor of William College in the early 20th century.  Alfred Clark Chapin, Class of 1869, also made a name for himself in law, business, politics, and benefactions to his alma mater.  These gentlemen would come together and create a library fit for the “gentleman’s college” Williams had become, to appropriate the terminology of Prof. Frederick Rudolph’s bicentennial essay, “Williams College 1793-1993: Three Eras, Three Cultures.”  The Stetson and Chapin libraries shared a building and defined an era, whose story is recounted in the “History 02” page now posted to this site. 

Coming attractions

1)  The College has posted the latest architectural renderings of the New Sawyer Library here.

2)  I have finally written my history of the Stetson Library and after tinkering with the illustrations, will post it on this site by June 30th, as “History 02.”

3)  The North and South Academic Buildings, the first campus construction in the overall Stetson-Sawyer project, are on course for completion this summer, and recent pictures are available here.

Off-site shelving facility to open

While the North and South Academic Buildings approach completion by the end of the summer in a highly visible position at the center of the Williams campus, the first library construction in the whole Stetson-Sawyer project is far from sight, but nearly finished and soon to be operational.  On a fine May morning I joined a group touring the high-density shelving facility the Williams College Library has built on Route 7 North, opposite the Cozy Corner.  I took away two strong impressions:  One, that the building suggests how pure functionality can be aesthetically appealing.  And the other, fascination at seeing two book environments in which I’ve spent my life — libraries and bookstores — melding to find a new model for an old need.  The facility reminded me of nothing so much as the country’s largest book distribution warehouse, which I visited decades ago, back when computer-based stocking procedures were just being innovated.   To follow me on the tour, please click through.

 

Librarian’s holiday

Visiting Great Britain last month, I made pilgrimage to two great libraries, the new British Library in London and the old Bodleian Library at Oxford University (where my son is reading for a Masters in Archaeological Science.)  While asking what the library will become in the 21st century, there is something to be learned from looking at libraries that have survived many centuries.  For my observations, please click through.  Meanwhile, look here soon for my tour of the Williams College Library’s new high-density shelving facility, and for my history of Stetson Hall soon after that.

 

First “History” page now complete

You can start on the long odyssey — 215 years and counting — of libraries at Williams College, by clicking on the “History 01” tab at the top of this screen, or under “Pages” in the links at right.  I hope you enjoy reading the saga as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it, that it holds as many interesting and entertaining discoveries for you as it did for me.

One of the great pleasures of the process was reading the words of Professor Frederick Rudolph ’42, who was my indispensable source — indeed his were the words that made College history come alive for me.  For a bicentennial lecture series, he delivered an essay, “Williams College 1793-1993: Three Eras, Three Cultures,” included as an appendix in the 1996 reprint of Mark Hopkins and the Log.  I see my history of Eph’s libraries as an extension of his thesis there.

Prof. Rudolph defines three eras at Williams:  Christian college, gentleman’s college, consumer college.  And I believe the Library embodied each culture in a specific building:  Lawrence Hall, Stetson Hall, Sawyer Library.  (I’d amend “consumer” to “selective,” which better suggests the recent approach of both College and students.)  From this perspective, the synthesis sought in the Stetson-Sawyer project signals the emergence of a fourth identity for the College, which I would characterize provisionally as the institution of excellence.

Within these changes, Prof. Rudolph sees “singularity of purpose — the training of a governing elite — that is the history of Williams.”  Though stated with characteristic directness (and certainly leaving out such alums as myself), this seems a fair statement of the College’s aim, and we will see how it plays out in the construction of the New Sawyer Library.  

Where it’s at

The College has just issued a new Report from Williams, which focuses on the Stetson-Sawyer project and displays the current plans. The Williams Record just published a tour of the North and South Academic Buildings, as they are approaching completion for opening next September, and recent construction photos are online. By June the off-site Library Shelving Facility is expected to open on schedule.  Chapin Library and College Archives have closed, with most of their collections going into storage until the new library building is finished in 2011, though interim spaces will open in the old Southworth Elementary School next September.  

Here’s a thought

Architectural historian Witold Rybczynski presents a slide show on Slate.com called “Borrowed Time,” which observes the new horizons of library building, and notes the recovery of key spaces like the grand reading room, which Stetson Hall had and will have, but which the existing Sawyer Library consciously omitted from its design.