Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007 - (Page 38)

m m PHOTOS BY RYAN DONNELL AND DOUGLAS BENEDICT Linderman Renewed With a coffered ceiling and gold-painted accents, the reading room maintains its original elegance but now offers wireless networking and other modern technologies. Amazingly, until the recent renovations, the two buildings were never connected on the fourth floor. “The 1929 architects didn’t disturb the roofline, so you could go up to the top of the east and west towers, but you couldn’t go across … unless you wanted to climb out a window and walk across the roof,” Cady says. Another issue was architectural support. “In that period, architects always struggled with building libraries because they didn’t have today’s building materials and techniques to support the weight of the books,” Cady says. “So they decided to make the stacks holding the books integrated structural members of the building. The steel stacks actually supported—and still support—the weight of both the books and parts of the building.” The most significant part of the 1929 addition was the 50-foot-long grand reading room, with its coffered ceiling and gold-painted accents. To restore its original beauty, the ceiling was repainted with the same accented detailing that the planners believed was used in 1929. “The grand reading room is fabulous, and I spent a lot of time there long ago,” says Stephen Cutcliffe ’76G, professor of science, technology, and society at Lehigh. “As a graduate student at Lehigh, I would get up in the morning, eat breakfast in the University Center, then go to the reading room in Linderman and occupy the same seat. I stayed there all day long until 9 at night, only leaving for class and meals. My peers would joke that there was a plate with my name on it on the back of my chair.” Scott Wojciechowski ’09, a Lehigh tour guide and class president, says, “I love bringing tours through Linderman Library and taking them into the reading room ﬁrst. I am still stunned by the beauty of the ornate room, with its great architectural sweep and stunning reading tables with brass lamps.” 38 lehigh alumni bulletin

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007

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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