£1,400,000 BUILDING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20917, 6 January 1930, Page 3

£1,400,000 BUILDING.

YALE’S NEW LIBRARY. 80. MILES OF SHELVES. AtNewhaven, in Connecticut, a great “ almost Gothic ” building is being erected to house the library of the University of Yale, which is at present in rather cramped quarters, writes a correspondent of the Times (London). The cost of the building will be £1,400,000, and will be called the Sterling Memorial Library. The building, which is nearly completed, occupies an entire block, and it will dominate the New Haven landscape. No adjective can so adequately describe the new building as the word imposing.” The 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 architect 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 one and a-quartor 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 reach about 80 miles. Any ambitious library attendant desiring to traverse all the aisles without retracing his steps would walk six and a-half -miles. The comfort of the Yale Library readers will be specially looked after, more particularly in the matter of ventilation. This will be accomplished by radiation, witii fans and air ducts so arranged that fresh air can be brought in from outside and filtered, and in some cases, humidified. The apparatus also provides for recirculating the air inside the building when wanted. , PROMPT SERVICE. Rapid delivery of any book is promised the reader. What is known as the callslip 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 it the book is not in the stack, so that he would get negative answer at once.- If the book should be in, the slip would be sent by a pneumatic tube directly to the floor of the stack where the 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 book 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 the following inscription over the , imposing entrance: “ The Yale Library is Inside.” The Yale bookstack, 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 wort on the principle that once a building to house pictures or books has been built there will be funds forthwith to fill them. Several valuable collections have been presented to Yale in the past, and the eariy donors include Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Richard Steele, and Governor Yale? in 1833 the valuable library of Bishop Berekeley was acquired. , It possesses intrinsically valuable Latm-American and Chinese collections, an enviable as•sembjage of eighteenth century English periodicals, first editions of Milton and Defoe, a really fine collection of Fielding, the beat collection (so it is claimed) of Goethe outside Weimar, hundreds of Arabic manuscripts, also some Irving, Fennimore Cooper, and Jonathan Edwards manuscripts, to say nothing of the Melk Monastery copy of the Gutenberg Bible, purchased at a fabulous price from Mr Rosenbach and presented by Mrs Herkness. The Elizabeth Club has some valuable first folios of Shakespeare, but, though under the jurisdiction of the Library, it will continue- tq maintain its separate entity in its present building.