Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007 - (Page 36)

m m above left: The delicate Linderman Renewed [ Pre#ervation\ ∑ vious memories—and memories yet right: Three students to come—would stay alive. survey the new library “It is important to preserve some under the original painted glass skylight. of the old Lehigh buildings as we below left: An aerial view continue to expand and construct of the library shows the new ones,” says Heather Rodale ’74, new corridor connect’76G, ’05P, a member of the Project ing the two towers. Advisory Committee who is also the current president of the Friends of the Lehigh Libraries. “Buildings like Linderman give us a glimpse of our history, while the renovations support our growing technology needs.” ironwork lining the spiral staircase remains unchanged. The Blending of Two Eras Linderman Library is home to hundreds of thousands of books, but it is so much more. Deep in the grooves of the giant tables in the reading room, and nestled in the building’s alcoves, stairwells, and hidden chairs, are the spirits of generations of Lehigh students, faculty, and staff. For so many Lehigh people, Linderman has been their library. “The libraries on Lehigh’s campus are, for all matter and purposes, the student centers,” Bruce Taggart, vice provost for Library and Technology Services (LTS), says. “We have a student center and students obviously go in and out, but they don’t literally live there. They live in the libraries. They go to Linderman, they study, they socialize, they hang out, they study, and then they socialize again, and that has not changed in 100 years.” When alumni walk through the library’s doors, the memories of their anxieties over exams, late-night discussions with professors and classmates, and meeting new friends all come ﬂooding back. So naturally, when Taggart sat down with a focus group of students at the start of the renovation process, they told him: “We love our nooks, we love our crannies—we don’t want them ripped out, and we don’t want ﬂuorescent lighting that will detract from the beauty.” Students also expressed concern about the planned addition of a café in the library. “The challenge of the students was, ‘Just don’t change the spirit that we love so much and what this library represents on campus.’ They said if the café is neon and like a Starbucks, it will be out of character,” Taggart recalls. Surprisingly, the students most adamantly against changing the building were the first-year students, perhaps because the decision of where to go to college was so difficult and of such importance that they didn’t want anything to change drastically before they even settled in. In response, when former President Greg Farrington, his wife, Jean, senior development officer with development who played a key role in the project, and the rest of the planning committee ﬁrst started talking about options, they knew they had to protect the charm and ambiance of the library, so all those pre36 lehigh alumni bulletin Linderman Library was built in the center of Lehigh’s campus in 1877-78 by Philadelphia architect Addison Hutton. Asa Packer made a gift of $500,000 in memory of his daughter Lucy Packer Linderman, who died tragically at age 41, perhaps after a fall from her horse. Only $100,000 was needed to build the library, and the remainder went to endow the collection. “During a period when many important rare books were purchased, Lehigh was known as a powerhouse in the book collecting world,” says Susan Cady, director of administration and planning in Library and Technology Services at Lehigh. Linderman was also unique in its layout; it was one of the ﬁrst American libraries to have specially designed areas for staff, collections, and readers. The original Linderman building was constructed from iron in the pre-steel era, and it featured the exquisite painted glass rotunda skylight that still graces the library today. “The 1878 building was pre-electrification,” Cady says. “It was a gas-lit building, and there was a lot of emphasis on getting natural light into the building. This is the reason for the choice of white tile walls and some smaller rotunda skylights no longer in use.” Shortly after the library was built, in the 1890s, there was a huge ﬁnancial downturn in the United States, and because most of its endowment was held in railroad stock, Lehigh suffered along with the rest of the country. “The university was really threatened at that time, and they apparently even considered selling parts of the library collection,” Cady says. Fortunately, the university decided against that course, and many of those original books still can be found in Linderman today. Advances in technology and the growth of the library collection during the four decades following Linderman’s 1878 opening necessitated the library’s ﬁrst major renovation in 1929. A large addition, which included electriﬁcation and a freight elevator to move books from ﬂoor to ﬂoor, was constructed so it literally wrapped around the original building. The addition was donated by university trustees and alumni, and was built by Philadelphia architects Visscher and Eurley.

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Table of Contents From the President's Desk Mailbox On Campus Arts & Culture Sports Research Cover Story - Forward March Little Man Overcomes Huge Odds Lights, Camera...Antiques Linderman Renewed From the Publisher's Desk Alumni News

Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007

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