College and Research Libraries O'Shaughnessy Library By C L Y D E E. EDDY SH O R T L Y A F T E R H I S A P P O I N T M E N T AS head librarian at the College of St. Thomas, the author found himself faced with a reality which had been the big dream and slim hope of his predecessors. Storage boxes and files filled with care- fully compiled plans and recommenda- tions for adequate library facilities repre- sented years of planning and designing for the time when a new building would become a reality. It is ironical that these dedicated librarians who had nourished over the years such splendid dreams on such slim hopes for a new building should have accepted other positions by the time the spontaneous and unexpected an- nouncement came on November 9, 1956 of a gift of |1,800,000 from Mr. and Mrs. Ignatius A. O'Shaughnessy for a new li- brary building. T h i s librarian had not even had time to form dreams for a new library, much less nurture them, when he was appointed librarian and given the op- portunity to help to bring to realization the cherished plans of his predecessors over almost twenty years. T h e history of the library of the Col- lege of St. Thomas is closely akin to the physical and academic growth of the school. When Archbishop J o h n Ireland founded St. Thomas in 1885, the campus was part of the Finn farm. A single brick building stood atop a knoll near the center of what is now the upper quad- rangle of buildings. Nearby woods, roll- ing hills, peaceful Lake Mennith, and the small creek which ran from the lake into the adjacent Mississippi River com- prised the campus for the first sixty-six students. T h e library, if it could be called such, was where the student found it—in the rooms of the first professors. Loans were personal ones from personal libraries. T h r e e other buildings were constructed Reverend Eddy is Librarian, College of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn. before the St. Thomas library got its first real home in the basement of Ireland Residence Hall in 1912. Meanwhile even the supply of books had diminished when St. Paul Seminary was established shortly before the turn of the century and several faculty members were transferred to the Seminary location—taking their books with them. Dr. Fred Taylor, professor of mathe- matics and a member of the staff at St. Thomas since 1901, recalls that one of his extra-curricular assignments was that of opening the "library" room in Ireland Hall once a week so that students could take books out for reading. Dr. Taylor chose Sunday mornings and the library was closed during the week. When Aquinas Hall was built in 1931, a good portion of one wing was set aside for the library. T h e two-story reference room with connecting periodical room and stacks seemed elegant and adequate for years to come. But as the collection grew, and the influx of veterans follow- ing World W a r I I shot the enrollment up to over twenty-two hundred students, the facilities were obviously inadequate. D. R . Watkins, then the librarian, began a series of recommendations to the pres- ident urging serious consideration for either expanding the facilities (which was impossible without destroying the archi- tectural beauty of the main quadrangle) or planning an entirely new building. T h e presidents of St. Thomas were sym- pathetic, but sympathy does not produce large sums for expansion. When Mr. O'Shaughnessy, a 1908 alumnus announced his desire to fulfill this dream of St. Thomas, it was singu- 264 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S Exterior of the O'Shaughnessy Library larly significant. A committee headed by Leonard Rogge, director of purchasing and plant operations at St. Thomas and former head librarian of the college, was appointed to bring the hope of years into fruition. Assisting Mr. Rogge were Ger- trude Costello, the then acting-librarian; Clara Glenn, St. Thomas Academy li- brarian; j . Herman Schauinger, profes- sor of history (but also holding a library degree); and H. C. Webb, audio-visual director. T h e committee met to compose a de- scription of the ideal library for St. Thomas' needs. T h e architectural firm of Lange and Raugland who had de- signed the St. Olaf College Library at Northfield, the St. Paul Seminary Library in St. Paul, and the new Minneapolis Public Library were retained. T h e first plans and sketches of the committee were submitted to various professional librar- ians throughout the country, and St. Thomas' faculty members were asked for their recommendations and criticism from departmental standpoints. A fourth set of plans was sent to Keyes Metcalf, librarian emeritus of Harvard College Library, who was retained as professional consultant. At the time of the present li- brarian's appointment in September 1957, the fifth revision of plans was made and specifications were set. Ground breaking ceremonies occurred in J u n e 1958, and the building was completed in October 1959. Today O'Shaughnessy Library is an imposing four-story, forty-six room struc- ture—the intellectual heart of the St. Thomas campus. It stands majestically at the eastern end of a quadrangle of buildings dedicated to the tradition of the liberal arts. Its modern Gothic matches the existing structures in the lower quadrangle of buildings, all typ- ified by the use of ribbed vaulting, pointed arches, steep roofs, and exteriors of Mankato limestone. Mr. O'Shaughnessy had only one sug- gestion regarding the plans of the library itself—that it would have a large, spa- cious, inspirational reference room. T h i s idea became the heart of O'Shaughnessy Library—the reference and periodical J U L Y 1 9 6 1 265 room with a vaulted, oak-paneled ceiling, two-and-one-half stories high, located on the second floor of the building. Im- mediately adjacent is a foyer with the public catalog and circulation desk. Ad- joining this area is a wing which com- prises the librarian's suite of offices and the technical processes department. Also on the second floor are a combined work room and staff room, college archives, and lounges. T h e library is connected to classroom buildings by a tunnel so that most of the students come to the library via the tun- nel and arrive at the basement level of our four-story structure. Here is located a large, unsupervised study hall provided with a small amount of reference ma- terials such as encyclopedias and diction- aries. Also on the basement level are a fully equipped auditorium, capable of seating comfortably 125 persons; an audio-visual center with preview and re- cording rooms, dark rooms, work and storage areas, and offices; and two seminar rooms, the larger capable of accommo- dating about forty persons and the smaller about twenty. T h e main entrance on the first floor opens into a spacious lobby having a serv- ice desk for reserve books. Adjoining is the reserve reading room, equal in area to the second floor reference room but not, of course, having the high vaulted ceiling. On the other side of the lobby is an attractively appointed browsing room which picks up in various ways the numerous features of the reference room —oak paneling, stained-glass medallions in the windows, and smaller versions of the large, impressive chandeliers. Also on the first floor are listening rooms, micro- film rooms, a faculty lounge, and the Celtic library (a special collection in Irish language and literature with approxi- mately four thousand volumes). An ap- preciated provision on this floor are five comfortable, well equipped private of- fices for faculty members engaged in writing for publication. One feature of our library involves the use of a tunnel as an entrance to the li- brary. Students looking for a place for study where they may smoke or talk find it in the basement study hall. Those in- tending to use reserve books or seeking a quiet place for individual study find this on the first floor in the reserve reading room. T h u s it is only the students seek- ing library materials who make their way to the second floor. T h e third floor is given over to seminar rooms, a curric- ulum laboratory, and an art gallery pro- vided with a storage and service room. T h e library is so designed that all areas in the building except the second floor can be closed in the evenings and on Sat- urdays and yet complete library service can be given with one librarian and a student assistant. O'Shaughnessy Library does not have open stacks properly speaking; they per- haps could be called modified open stacks. T h e stacks are located in a sepa- rate wing of eight levels (two tiers to each floor) with the main entrance at the sec- ond floor circulation desk. Students have full access to the stacks, but must sign in and out. T h e r e are other entrances to the stacks on the first, third, and seventh tiers, opening on the basement, first floor, and third floor respectively. These en- trances are locked for the present, but access has been provided for any future change in the use of the library facilities. T h e stacks will house about two hun- dred thousand books. (Our present col- lection has about eighty thousand vol- umes.) On each tier are to be found seven to ten study and typing carrels. Presently we are using five tiers for our book and periodical collections and two tiers for storage. One tier has been tem- porarily set up with eight private studies for professors engaged in research. T h e materials used for the construction of these faculty offices were prefabricated so they can be used again in a different area whenever the library needs that tier for (Continued on page 304) 266 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S LeMoyne Anderson, Elliott Hardaway, Gustave A. Harrer, J o e H . Howard, Roy L . Kidman, William R . Pullen, and Katherine Walker to the Committee on National Li- brary Week. Mr. H a r r e r will serve as chair- man of this committee. Frances Kennedy and G. Flint Purdy to the Committee on Organization. Mr. Purdy is the new chairman of this committee. Dale Barker and Paul Freisner to the Committee on Standards. Mr. Hirsch has accepted reappointment as the chairman of this committee. Henry C. Koch and Carl Sachtlaben to the Publications Committee. Will Ready has agreed to continue as chairman of this com- mittee. Mrs. Margaret K. T o t h has been reap- pointed editor of the A C R L Microcard Series. T h e terms of Maurice F. T a u b e r as editor of CRL and William V. Jackson as editor of the A C R L Monographs do not expire this year. Mr. Jackson has appointed the following to the editorial board for the Monographs: Donald Coney, Mr. Dunlap, Eileen T h o r n t o n , and Stanley West. T h e composition of the editorial boards for the other A C R L publications is unchanged. As a special committee, the Advisory Com- mittee T o Administer the Burmese projects remains as before: Robert B. Downs, chair- man; Paul H . Bixler, William S. Dix, and L . Quincy Mumford. President Low recently announced the appointment of a special Advisory Commit- tee to the President on Federal Legislation. Mr. Low will serve as chairman of this com- mittee during Mr. Ellsworth's administration. Other members of the commitee are Lewis C. Branscomb, Mr. Downs, Frederick G. Kil- gour, Richard H . Logsdon, and Stephen A. McCarthy. T h e current Committee on Appointments and Nominations will complete its work at the Cleveland Conference. T h e new vice- president and president elect will make his appointments to this committee later in the year. A C R L ' s Budget Committee is wholly ex- officio, consisting of the division's three prin- cipal officers and its executive secretary. Mr. Low will be chairman for 1961-62, and i Mark Gormley will replace Mr. Harwell. Any additional divisional committee ap- pointments will be announced after the Cleveland Conference. Appointments to sec- tional committees will be made by the new chairmen of the sections later in the year O'Shaughnessy Library (Continued from page 266) its book collections. There are also lo- cated in the stacks a book lift, an eleva- tor, and a depressible receiving book truck for the outside book depository. There are some special artistic features of O'Shaughnessy Library which should be pointed out. On the outside of the building are to be found carvings of the coats-of-arms of the archbishop and bish- ops of the diocese. These were prepared by Brioschi Studios of St. Paul. Over the campus entrance is a statue of St. Jerome, patron saint of librarians, sculptured by Joseph Kiselewski of New York. An in- teresting feature of the building is a series of stained-glass medallions made by Pichel Studios of Waukesha, Wis. Throughout the building these medal- lions, inserted in casement windows, depict various authors, literary figures, the saints of the church, explorers, found- ers of religious orders, areas of the cur- riculum, and coats-of-arms. O'Shaughnessy Library has been in use now for over a year and we have discov- ered no serious flaw in the over-all plan and operation of our new building. We have found it remarkably adaptable to our changing needs. There have been many willing hands and minds available in the planning of this new library build- ing and St. Thomas is grateful to all of them, but especially the college is pro- foundly grateful to Mr. O'Shaughnessy who brought to reality this dream of former librarians and presidents. 304 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S