£1,400,000 BUILDING

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 148, 19 December 1929, Page 20

£1,400,000 BUILDING

YALE'S NEW LIBRARY | 80 MILES OF SHELVES j At Now Havon, in Connecticut, a great "almost Gothic" building 1b being erected to house the library of the University of Yale, which is at present in rather cramped quarters, writes a correspondent of "The j Times" (London). The cost of the building will be a £ 1,400,000, and will be [called the Sterling Memorial Library. [ The building, which .is nearly comjpleted, occupies an entire block, and it [will dominate the Now Haven land- | scape. | No adjectivo can so adequately dej scribe tho new building as the word [''imposing." Th© main portion, rising like a huge square tower, is imposing by its height and area; and not less imposing is the immense doorway and entrance hall. It has been designed to be the greatest building in a future group, and it is obvious that the archiect has kept this, idea in mind. 3,500,000 VOLUMES. The book-stack is built to accommodate 3,500,000 volumes. The tower is [subdivided into 16 tiers by means of, thin marble floors 1£ inches thick, and rises to approximately 150 feet. Two thousand ( tons of steel and iron will be incorporated in the construction of the book-stack, and 1000 tons of marble will be used for the floors and stair treads. The columns, placed end on end, would form a steel span approximately 15 miles long. The shelves, placed end to end would roach about 80 miles. Any ambitious library attendant desiring to traverse all tho aisles without retracing his steps would walk sis and a half miles. The comfort of tho Yale Library readers will be specially' looked after, more particularly in the matter of ventilation. This will be accomplished by radiation, with fans and air ducts so arranged that, fresh air can bo brought in from outside and filtered, and in some cases humidified. The apparatus also provides for re-circulating the air inside the building when wanted. PROMPT SERVICE. .Rapid, delivery ...0f... any book is promised the reader. What is known as the call-slip file will be kept close to the counter, where readers will hand in their cards with the number of the book stated. Only a moment will be necessary to tell the reader if the book is not in the stack, so that he would get a negative answer at once. If the book should be in, the slip would bo sent by a pneumatic tube directly to the floor of-the stack -where tho volume is stored, and the attendant, upon getting the book, would merely place it upon the conveyor, which would be constantly in operation and which would carry the bock directly to the delivery desk. •-. . The building is magnificent. What of the books which it will hold? So much emphasis is laid on America nowadays on the magnificence of its buildings that we can admire the wit of Mr. Andrew Keogh, Yale's indefatigable librarian, in suggesting tho following inscription over the imposing entrance: "The Yale.Library, is Inside." The Yale book-stack, built to take 3,500,000 volumes, will be far from filled. Obviously it is provision for the future. Art galleries. and libraries in America work on the principle that once a building to house pictures or books has been built there will be funds forthcoming to fill them. Several valuablo collections have been presented to Yale in the past, ana the early • donors -include- Sir ■ Isaac. Newton, Sir Ei6hard Steele, and Governor Yale; in'lß33 the valuablo library of Bishop Berkeley was acquired. It possesses intrinsically valuablo LatinAmerican and Chinese collections, a,n enviable assemblage of 18-century English periodicals,-first editions of Milton and Defoe, a really fine'collection of Fielding, the best collection (so it is claimed) of Goethe outside Weimar, hundreds 'of.Arabic."manuscripts, also some Irving, Feimimore Cooper, and Jonathan Edwards manuscripts, to say nothing of the Melk Monastery copy of the Gutenberg' Bible, purchased at a fabulous price from Mr. Bosenbach and presented by Mrs. Herkness. The Elizabethan Club has some valuable first folios of Shakespeare, but, though under the jurisdiction of the Yale Library, it will continue to maintain its separate <ontity in its present building.