Fixing a Hole Where the Rain Gets In

When Widener Library officials proposed an $8.5 million "50 year planned life program" five years ago, Oscar Handlin, director of the University library and Pforzheimer University Professor, says development office personnel "looked at its bottom line--and filled it."

"You only do maintenance when you have to do it," Handlin now says, adding that the imminent $1.5 million replacement of the sixty-eight-year-old library's original. roof "really needed to be done."

"Rain hasn't leaked on books, but it's leaked on professors." Handlin says, explaining that the top floor of Widener is primarily for professors' offices which have been graced with "little pails occasionally."

In contrast to the previously proposed overhaul of the whole library, Handlin and Yen-Tsai Feng, librarian of Harvard College, continue to plan but with a new way of thinking about renovations: "If money turned up, what would we do first," When an anonymous donation came through, there was no question that a new copper roof should replace the leaky, old one which threatened to damage Widener's priceless collections.

Handlin says that if Widener were to conduct a study outlining a complete program of renovations, "it would probably show a need for $20 million." That, Handlin adds, is the wrong strategy in a time renovation funds are short across the University. Instead, Handlin and Feng make careful, preliminary plans for better use and efficiency of the building, and propose renovations in less-costly stages in order of need.

A microfiche catologue system--slated for introduction this fall--will eventually replace the mammoth card system, freeing space and making the list of Widener holdings available at over 100 locations, Handlin and Feng say. "We haven't hurried into this. We've let other people make mistakes. Our system's too big and complex to make them," Handlin says.

The big, complex nature of Harvard's collections also makes them precious--and susceptible to ruin due to age and deterioration. Heather E. Cole, librarian of Hilles and Lamont libraries, says "it's remarkable the way Hilles and Lamont have been built to last." While the undergraduate libraries and Widener do not face the same immediate dangers to their structures as in some decrepit Houses and buildings, the librarians say there are potential problems with the preservation of books.

Though the roof replacement may avert threats posed by leaks in Widener for many years, the natural aging process eats away at some books within--8 million frames of microfilm of pages of books in poor condition were prepared recently. And they have also begun to utilize "deep freeze" machines to preserve books and exterminate pesty and destructive bugs.

Cole's agenda for book preservation in Lamont and Hilles includes possible installation of specially reflective windows which will provide "a protective shielding" for books currently exposed to destructive sun rays. Cole adds, however, that such renovations are at present controversial and costly. Beyond those scientific changes, Cole sees "potential conflict" between efforts to save books and save energy. Less heating and cooling of buildings during hours and days when they are not in use means "enormous savings," Cole says, but she adds that wide temperature changes are "death to books."