The Library Meets the 21st Century

By Jeff Kelly Lowenstein

At the end of a day-long dedication celebration for the new Donnelley and Lee Library, shortly before he cut the ribbon to officially welcome the new facility to Lake Forest College’s campus, President Stephen D. Schutt spoke about the potency of belief.

“Belief is a powerful thing,” Schutt said. “Many people at Lake Forest College believed in the library for a long time. This is, symbolically and actually, a very important day.” Hundreds of people agreed with him.

Years in the making, the Donnelley and Lee Library opened on October 8 with a symposium involving 50 College faculty, a keynote address by Princeton University professor Stanley Katz, and a ceremony that inaugurated the $18 million building, the third library in the College’s 147-year history.

The library is far more than an expensive upgrade. Incorporating elements from the previous structure while respecting the integrity of the campus’s green spaces, the building integrates library and information technology services, and anticipates the ways students present and future will use libraries. This physical and conceptual revision places the College and its new building at the forefront of the nation’s libraries, not just among small liberal arts colleges, but among higher education institutions in general.

“We design a lot of academic libraries across the country,” said Geoff Freeman, an architect with Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott, the firm that designed the facility. “The new library at Lake Forest College is a big sea change.”

More than a decade in the making
The impetus for the new library began in 1992, when members of the Library Committee surveyed the faculty about the state of the Donnelley Library. Although the building had been a significant advance for the College when it was built in 1965, the expanded size of the College’s collections during the ensuing quarter-century reduced significantly the amount of student study space. As a result, students frequently retrieved materials from the library and then returned to their rooms or other study spaces.

“The old Donnelley Library was, when it was completed four decades ago, the heart of the campus,” said James Cubit, director of library and information technology. “But the seating and lighting were no longer conducive to long periods of study. In addition, today’s students are format-blind: they don’t care what format the information is in, they just want access. So we had to integrate the print and electronic collections in a seamless manner.”

Two task forces in the mid-’90s advanced the library’s plans, as did a 1998 building task force, which started the process of selecting an architect. The Library advisory group continued to refine plans that had been laid and included over the two-year process: students Lisa Y. Browne ’03, Mike J. Haining ’05, Brianne E. Peck '04, and Kathryn “Katie” J. Perry ’04; professors William Martin and Michael Ebner; trustees Larry Lee, Chris Chandler, Jean W. Mohr ’52, Ren Goltra, and Barbara Taylor; and President Steve Schutt, Steven P. Galovich (then provost and dean of the faculty), Leslie T. Chapman ’79 (vice president for business), David J. Siebert (director of facilities management), and Jim Cubit.

The project got a major financial boost in 2002 when College Board member Laurence Lee and his wife, Barbara, pledged more than $4 million. Some 2,000 other alumni and supporters pledged an additional $6 million. In need of additional funding, Schutt and then-chairman of the Board of Trustees David B. Mathis ’60 were able to secure an $8 million capital grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

This generous public funding was made available because of the many public needs the library supports. Area residents make frequent use of the library, as do teachers from Waukegan High School and other local public schools. In addition, Lake Forest College is a repository of federal documents, which are available to the public whenever the facility is open.

An intensive 16-month construction period followed the granting of the money. The project proceeded in two phases: The 27,000-square-foot addition was completed in the spring of 2004, and the library collection was moved to the new addition. The full-scale renovation of the former Donnelley Library occurred as a second phase.

New design creates a state-of-the-art facility
Architects Geoff Freeman and Buddy Mear, along with designer Joe Rondinelli, confronted multiple challenges: to incorporate the old structure and collections into the new building while creating space for future unanticipated outcomes; to reinvigorate the library as the center of campus life; and to revisit basic assumptions about how students engage the library. The result is a 21st-century library with a fascinating blend of colors and shapes.

The building’s three floors reflect a progression from the past to the present and into the future. The majority of the library’s print collections were moved to an extensive new below-ground level. This includes the College’s Archives which houses many significant materials related to the history of Lake Forest, area communities, and Chicago. Highlighted by collections on railroad history and popular culture, the College’s Special Collections include rare books, photographs, and family and corporate papers.

Reflecting the decision to merge the library and information technology (IT) systems and supply the building with state-of-the-art equipment, the first floor features a 24-hour computer lab next to a cyber café and access to both reference librarians and IT specialists. A wireless network runs throughout the building.

And the top floor points to the future with ‘smart’ classrooms equipped with the latest technology, study rooms and workstations for group collaboration, and a rhetoric and production room for honing oral-presentation skills. The library’s 72,000 square feet include space that can be reconfigured to accommodate future trends.

“The need for collaborative and flexible library space has never been more important,” Cubit said. “In today’s environment, we see our students and faculty working more closely together than ever, and the goal of facilitating closer working relationships was at the very center of the planning process for our new library.”

The planners made a commitment to making the library the true “heart” of campus. Both interior and exterior renovations draw the community into the building in a variety of ways. Light flows into large windows on the ground and second floors and fills the facility. The attention to light led the architects to match color choices and “use” patterns with different times of the day. Thus, colors on the building’s east side are more subdued, and the functions are more traditional, in keeping with the smaller numbers of students expected in the morning. By contrast, the colors on the west side are brighter and more vibrant, and the spaces are more open in anticipation of greater numbers of students gathering to discuss issues and study during the late afternoon and into the evening.

“A library should be a place where intellectual movement happens,” said Freeman, who has also worked on libraries at Yale University, Duke University, and Dartmouth College.

Physical movement is facilitated by mobile chairs on wheels—“We expect furniture to travel,” Cubit said—and comfortable chairs in which to take a nap or a break from a roommate. A pathway that begins outside and leads through the library invites the community into the building, which administrators envision as a place for both formal and informal conversation.

Faculty Symposium fosters dialogue
At the day-long dedication ceremony on October 8, the dialogue began in earnest during a symposium by the College’s professors and staff that featured topics ranging from life-influencing books and high-stakes testing to the creative process.

W. Rand Smith, interim dean of faculty and the symposium’s organizer, said more than half of the College’s faculty members submitted proposals to participate in the event.

”I put the call out to faculty for a big morning event to showcase the creative and intellectual faculties on [campus],” said Smith. “It was a challenge to organize it in a way that made sense.”

Smith decided to group the sessions thematically, with the need for libraries, the importance of publicly engaged scholarship, and new frontiers in biology, psychology, and mathematics playing prominent roles. Each 65-minute session was facilitated by a moderator and featured two to four faculty members. Carol Gayle, Benjamin Goluboff, Robert Lemke, Arthur Miller Jr., and Steve Rosswurm began the day by discussing life-changing books, while professors Les Dlabay, Linda Horwitz, David Park, and Christopher Reed weighed in on “Designing Products, Images and the Built Environment” during the second session. In the symposium’s third and final section, faculty members Rami Levin, Dennis Mae, Tracy McCabe, and Donald Meyer expressed their creative talents through dance, song, and original musical composition.

Politics professor Carolyn Tuttle’s presentation about the impact of global economic forces on Mexican women moved Patrick A. Hendricks ’06 to ask, “How do you suggest we as Americans take steps to remedy this problem?”

An award-winning teacher, Tuttle spoke about the importance of consumer vigilance. “Here’s one thing you can do: When you buy goods, you can ask if they were made in sweatshops,” said Tuttle, who expanded her work on child labor during a summer 2003 research sabbatical in Nogales, Mexico. She was presenting her research results publicly for the first time at the symposium.

After the panel, Hendricks, a native of Memphis, remarked that he and his peers need to increase their global awareness. “We are very blessed to be in our lot in life,” said Hendricks, who is involved in the College’s student government. “It’s important to be aware of life outside the bubble. It’s my moral obligation to try to prompt some kind of social change.”

But in addition to the structured conversations that occurred during the symposium, College leaders envisioned the library as a site of more serendipitous dialogue, and early results appeared promising.

Political science professor Paul Fischer cited the library’s coffee bar and accessibility as part of his decision to hold office hours in the new building. “I had more conversations in one hour than I did in the past ten years in the old library,” said Fischer, who joined the faculty in 1971. Many students shared Fischer’s enthusiasm.

“The technology is excellent, the facilities are wonderful, and the hours are very convenient,” said George C. Gerolimatos ’05, a history major who said he plans to spend about 15 hours per week studying and socializing in the library. Particularly enamored of the interlibrary loan feature, he added that he likes having people who can help him sift through all the information available to him.

”Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming, but it’s wonderful to have a place to go,” Gerolimatos said. “The library staff is an excellent resource.”

Librarians serve a vital role
Gerolimatos’s endorsement was echoed throughout the day by speakers such as Reference Librarian Nancy Sosna Bohm, who cited the equal, if not greater, importance of librarians during the digital era.

In his keynote address, Stanley Katz, director of the Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies and president emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies, spoke about librarians’ skills both in acquiring materials and serving as intermediaries between information and the users.

”Most of us are not very good at picking our way through this embarrassment of informational riches,” said Katz. “Librarians are experts in establishing the authority of information. As I understand it, faculty and students on this campus already appreciate that [librarians] are now more necessary than ever.”

Ribbon cutting and dedication highlight the day
President Schutt reinforced Professor Katz’s comments during a ribbon-cutting and dedication ceremony held in the library’s lobby. Speaking before an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds, Schutt said the new library encapsulates the College’s past, its present, and through its students, its future.

“Some student is going to figure out a better way of using everything here than any of us have ever imagined,” Schutt said. “Welcome to the new heart of Lake Forest College.”

Jerry Henry, chairman of the College’s Board of Trustees, said it was a heart that many people had helped to build, citing the contributions of former College president David Spadafora, former provost and dean of the faculty Steven Galovich, Lake Forest Mayor John Preschlack, State Sen. Susan Garrett ’94 (D-29th), Lake Forest aldermen John Andersen and Roger Mohr, Lake Forest city manager Robert R. Kiely Jr., ’79, and Harry Griffith, superintendent of school districts 67 and 115, all of whom attended the ceremony.

Henry also acknowledged major donors Chris and Henry Chandler, Barbara and Buzz Taylor, Bill and Solange Brown, Russ and Christina Fisher, Betsy N. Getz, Hannah Judy Gretz, Jim and Audrey Gorter, Rob and Anne Krebs, Frederick A. Krehbiel ’63, John Krebhiel ’59 and Kennetha “Posey” Krehbiel ’60, Marion Lloyd, David B. Mathis ’60 and Toni Potratz Mathis ’61, Suzie Meyer, and Peter G. Schiff ’74, and Elizabeth “Lisa” B. Schiff ’75.

“Without the hard work of these individuals and organizations, we would not be standing here today,” Henry said. “On behalf of Lake Forest College and our entire community, we say, ‘Thank you.’”

Professor Michael Ebner stood on the top floor of the building that he and other members of the Library Committee had worked for more than a decade to create, beaming as he greeted alumni, colleagues, and students after the ceremony. “I am highly gratified that this has happened, and happened in a timely manner,” said Ebner. “This is, indeed, a very significant day in the history of the College.”

President Schutt, in a conversation with several guests, said, “The building will be much more than a traditional library. Its cutting-edge design, communal gathering spaces, technological capabilities, and location at the very heart of our campus will make it the intellectual, cultural, and collaborative hub of Lake Forest College….We are thrilled to open our new library for the 21st century, which will be used and enjoyed by students, faculty, and all those who wish to gather on our campus to participate in all levels of higher learning.” 

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein is a freelance journalist based in Evanston, Illinois.