A Bancroft Library for the 21st Century
The penny has dropped. More precisely, Proposition 47, a $13.05 billion bond for public education facilities, was approved by California voters in November, 2002. The bond provides UC Berkeley with funds for seismic strengthening, including $17 million for work on the Doe Library Annex, home to your favorite special collections repository, The Bancroft Library.
In anticipation of this decision, Bancroft and campus staff have been planning for the removal of The Bancroft Library, each and every staff member, book, manuscript, photograph, map, computer terminal, chair, coffeepot, and wastebasket, to temporary locations for over a year. The limitations on “surge” space will require that Bancroft transfer much of its on-campus collection to the Northern Regional Library Facility in Richmond. Current plans call for the staff and limited collections to relocate for about two years to “surge space” on campus starting in Summer 2005. For those of you familiar with the campus, the surge space in question is a set of pre-fab metal buildings just west of the Hearst Gymnasium. Designed by Harrison Fraker, Dean of the College of Environmental Design, these buildings served originally as the home of CED while Wurster Hall was undergoing seismic renovation.
In Bancroftiana n. 120 (Spring 2002) I reported on the initial architectural studies we commissioned from Mark Cavagnero Associates and in n. 121 (Fall 2002) I sketched out a vision of collaboration between Bancroft and other departments and research projects at Berkeley, a new model for special collections libraries in the 21st century. The library has long been described as the laboratory for humanists and social scientists, the equivalent of the research laboratories in the sciences. A major difference, however, is that the library provides space and an opportunity for individual research, while in scientific laboratories teams of faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduates work together on specific research problems, by definition advancing the state of the art. One of the crucial results of that kind of collaboration is the mentoring and acculturation of students into the ethos and methodology of scientific research. A Bancroft-based “collaboratory” could offer that same kind of experience in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. A sine qua non for that vision, however, is a building designed to make it possible.
Unfortunately, the Proposition 47 funds, while serving the vital needs of protecting life and materials from destruction during an earthquake, offer no support to expand or otherwise improve the building. Bancroft has therefore set out to raise private funds to provide not only collaborative work space, but also critically-needed improvements: the installation of climate control systems, modern security systems, and improved storage space. This is an obligatory opportunity to secure the safety of Bancroft and its collections, enhance our ability to serve our patrons better, and position ourselves for future improvements in the years to come.
Given the state of the economy and the Spring 2004 date for making final decisions on the scope of the project, we are now designing improvements for which can raise support by next spring. Our strategy is to rank those improvements in terms of cost as well as in terms of their impact on Bancroft’s programs; in short, what’s biggest bang for the buck?
Everyone agrees that the highest priority should be to protect the collections by renewing the building’s fifty-year-old infrastructure (mechanical systems, wiring, plumbing) and adding all-important climate control and networking capabilities. The most insidious threat to our collections are changes in temperature and humidity; and no library can function these days without a robust computer networking system. To serve our patrons and the public more effectively, we need a larger and more functional reading room, expanded exhibition space, and more seminar and study rooms devoted to the sorts of collaborative research sketched above. All this will require adding about 20,000 square feet to the space we already have. Mark Cavagnero Associates have presented us with the option of a rooftop addition, subject to campus design review, and various reconfigurations of existing space. We have just started to analyze in detail the pros and cons of each option. Once we have that analysis in hand, we will be able to put these options in priority order with price tags attached. This strategy will allow us to scale the size of the project to the funding available in a structured way. It won’t be all or nothing.
The Library Advisory Board, the support group for the Library as a whole, and the Council of the Friends of The Bancroft Library are now establishing a Bancroft Renewal Committee of volunteers, faculty, and staff. Over the next several months we will jointly recruit members to serve on the Committee, set up a process to identify prospective major donors, and come up with a list of “naming opportunities” in the renovated building. For example, our current exhibition gallery is simply called “The Bancroft Gallery.” A suitable donation would result in, for example, “The John and Jane Doe Exhibition Gallery.” There will be a great many such opportunities.
Because of the short time frame the coming Bancroft Renewal Campaign must be intense and focused. Of necessity the Friends will play an important role in this effort. You will be hearing more from us in the near future.
Volume 122
Spring 2003
Table of Contents
Reading Papyri, Writing History
From the Director: A Bancroft Library for the 21st Century
California Children's Books at the Bancroft Library
Hazards of the Forests fo Watsonville-- as reported by Regent Arthur Rodgers
Bear in Mind: The Many Lives of a Library Exhibit
The Last Portrait of Mark Twain
