Tag: John Unsworth

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Controversial calculations: Alderman renovation moves forward

Some UVA professors fear the Alderman Library renovation will seriously hinder research at the university. Photo by Eze Amos

Governor Ralph Northam approved the University of Virginia’s proposal to renovate Alderman Library on March 24, sending the $160 million project into development.

The renovation, which has been planned since 2016, involves removing a significant percentage of the library’s books and turning its cramped 10-floor layout into a more spacious five floors to meet modern fire codes. It will also increase the number of entrances and extend a bridge to the adjacent Clemons Library, to make it easier to move between the two buildings.

According to a December statement from UVA Library, over half of the roughly 1.6 million volumes currently housed in Alderman will return when the renovation’s finished, while the remainder will be redistributed to either Clemons or the Ivy Stacks, a storage facility one mile off Grounds.

Faculty and students have raised concerns about the project’s impact on research, with many criticizing the methodology used by Dean of Libraries John Unsworth to calculate the estimated loss of on-site books.

Tensions escalated in spring 2018, after a steering committee predicted an 18 percent reduction in Alderman’s on-site collections, which many professors say is inaccurate. Some, such as UVA professor of English John Bugbee, have estimated the university’s plan will result in a 45 percent reduction.

The dispute boils down to a disagreement over how to calculate the number of books that can fit in a foot of shelving.

Unsworth used an Association of Research Libraries algorithm that calculates 10 books per foot of shelving, while faculty point to academic sources that estimate eight books per foot of shelving is more precise.

In addition, the proposal also incorrectly claims that books will be stored in the basement, which is reserved for processing, says Bugbee. “It also does not account for growth space—the leftover space in a shelf left for new materials.”

In late May, Bugbee and fellow UVA English professor John Parker gathered over 500 signatures opposing the reduction of books at Alderman. Bugbee then relayed his concern that the Board of Visitors was misled them when it approved the project in a November meeting with UVA President Jim Ryan.

“I told them I would be happy if we’re only going to lose 18 percent of books,” Bugbee says, “but we would need to adjust the project to get there.”

He anonymously contacted the Association of Research Libraries, and a spokesperson told him the 10-books-a-foot metric was for a survey, not for any sort of capital project, he says.

Despite that information, Ryan continued to support Unsworth, who says this is the best option he has. “The only alternative that is not an estimate is to fill the library with books and then count them,” Unsworth says. “We’re not in a position to do that yet.”

Books will begin being moved out of Alderman this summer, and the first floor of Clemons will be closed until August, according to the library’s website. Construction will begin in 2020 and be completed in 2023.

Correction: The $160 million cost of the project was inaccurately reported as $305 million in the original story, based on a typo in a press release about the budget from Delegate Steve Landes.

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Angst over future of Alderman’s books 

University Librarian John Unsworth has not convinced many of his peers that access to research materials will be adequate after Alderman’s renovation is complete. Photo by Dan Addison

By Jonathan Haynes

A renovations proposal that could slash more than half the stacks in Alderman Library has provoked a fiery response and over 500 petition signatures from students and faculty, who fear only 40 to 60 percent of the books would return to Alderman when the project is complete in 2023.

Books will be relocated to Clemons Library or warehoused a mile off Grounds at the Ivy Stacks during renovation, anticipated to begin in 2020 if the project is approved by the university’s Board of Visitors in September. The $160 million plan would then go to the General Assembly for funding.

Opposition to the proposal rests on the idea that browsing is essential to research. “When you conduct research, you get as many books as you can and go to their appendices to find other books that have been cited,” says Samuel Dennis, president of the English Students Association at UVA. That means circulation numbers are lower than actual use numbers because people aren’t checking out “a lot of the books they have to use.”

Dennis does not think the planned expansion of the Library Express On-Grounds service, which provides stored or unavailable library materials to faculty, is sufficient. “Ease of access is important when you conduct research, which is incredibly time-consuming,” he says.

University architects have called for Alderman renovations for years, raising concerns about its dated infrastructure, particularly in the stacks, where many of the shelves double as support beams for the ceiling, low ceilings make it impossible to install sprinklers and narrow passageways violate the fire code.

Alderman is also running out of space. When the library was constructed in 1938, with a grant from the Public Works Administration, the university counted 2,000 undergraduate students and under 6,000 when the stacks were added in the 1960s. Now, UVA has almost 17,000 undergrads.

Dennis is aware of the safety concerns. “There’s clearly a reason to renovate the library, he says. “But does that mean that quantity of books would have to leave?”

The Alderman Steering Committee drafted the plan and contracted HBRA, a Chicago-based architectural firm, to design the renovations, which will include sitting wells and compact shelving, motorized stacks that compress and expand with the push of a button, to create more empty space.

But no blueprints are available, and many of the figures provided by the committee have been disputed, including the number of books that will return to Alderman. And earlier this month, University Librarian John Unsworth and HBRA informed the Board of Visitors that specific plans will not be available for the next few months.

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Fast track: Faculty and students want in on Alderman renovation planning

Alderman Library will lose all its 2.5 million books during its $160 million renovation. The number of books that will come back worries some bibliophiles. Staff photo

UVA has long desired a makeover of its 1937 research library, and with General Assembly funding for the $160 million project likely in 2018, plans are surging ahead—leaving some faculty and students uneasy about whether Alderman’s 2.5 million book collection will make it back to the library once renovations are complete.

And while plans are not complete, Alderman’s low-ceilinged, rumored trysting-spot stacks will not be part of its new look.

“There’s no way to bring them up to code,” said university librarian John Unsworth at a December 13 meeting about the project. The vintage wiring and plumbing are safety hazards, he says, and the low ceilings make it impossible to install sprinklers.

“It’s not as though a library has never burned on this campus,” he said, referring to the great Rotunda fire of 1895.

As part of the preparation, the size of the Ivy Stacks has doubled, and most of Alderman’s collection will relocate there, with 750,000 tomes staying on Grounds in Clemons Library.

“I’m very interested in hearing from students and faculty,” said Unsworth about the selection criteria for keeping books in open stacks. “No research facility worth its name keeps all its books in open shelves.”

It’s that criteria—and earlier plans that touted more open space and chairs and fewer books—that concerned some at the December meeting.

One suggestion from an attendee was for administrators to proactively reach out to grad students—and not hold meetings such as this when they’re gone.

“What was striking were the professions of administrators that they wanted to be open,” says UVA English professor David Vander Meulen. But of the actual plans, he says, “So much of it remains uncertain in my mind.”

He’s concerned about the “fast and furious” timeline to get the project ready to go to the Board of Visitors in the spring, which put planning for July through December 2017, says Vander Meulen.

He notes that UVA commissioned a study from Brightspot, the company that wanted to remove the books from New York’s iconic public library on 42nd Street and ship them to New Jersey—until the outcry of activists and authors like Salman Rushdie halted the process.

“I wasn’t thrilled with that part of our process,” said Unsworth of the Brightspot study at the meeting. “We’re not working with them now.”

To do the renovation, the university has chosen HBRA Architects, which remodeled Yale’s libraries. Its architects will be at UVA January 24 and February 7 to gather input from the community.

“We need to be a big part of that input!” writes UVA alum and visiting scholar John Bugbee in an email to rally “librarophiles.”

Vander Meulen is dubious about how much input the renovation will get from those not on the library committee. “It sounds like we have two days when the architects are here,” he says.

UVA English professor Elizabeth Fowler advised attendees how to articulate to the architects what the books at Alderman mean to faculty and students. “They want vision and meaning,” she said.

Unsworth has said Alderman could end up holding more books than it currently houses.

The collection will move in 2019 and construction will begin in 2020, according to the timeline, providing “several years of disruption,” says Unsworth.