A World of Books All Their Own

"From the outside it looks like a Pepsi-Cola bottling factory. From the inside it looks like Horn & Hardart's automat. But it's pretty as a picture and it works like a charm."

Thus The Crimson introduced its readers to Lamont Library on Jan. 3, 1949, its opening day.

Aside from its modern architecture-which stood out in overwhelmingly traditional Harvard Yard-the library's design was revolutionary in two other ways: It was the first library in the nation specifically for undergraduates, and students were allowed direct access to its stacks.

Open stacks were a true innovation, because the status quo in university libraries like Widener at the time was for students to request a book, then wait for a staff member to find it for them.

From the very beginning, Lamont Library has fielded feedback both good and bad.

Since it was built, the building has seen its share of changes with the admission of women to the library in 1967, changing course requirements and expanded reading lists, the gentrification of its Square surroundings, the advent of computers and an increasingly diverse student body.

But though things change, other things stay the same. This year the library will finally bid goodbye to some of the original chairs, the Sikes "Seats of Knowledge," made in 1948 "especially"-as an advertisement put it-"for Harvard men."

This summer the third floor (i.e., main floor) reading room will be re-carpeted and receive new furniture and lighting in time for undergraduates' return in the fall.

But just as the library makes its first real structural replacements since its grand opening, anniversary festivities have stirred memories to life as Lamont celebrates its 50th birthday.

Laying the Foundation

The library began with a $1.5 million gift from financier-philanthropist Thomas W. Lamont, class of 1892, promised prior to World War II and renewed in September 1945.

Lamont's gift met a pressing need. During the spike in enrollment after the war due to the GI Bill and returning veterans, overcrowding became a serious problem in Widener, especially during exams.

Keyes D. Metcalf, director of the University library from 1937-55, told The New York Times in 1948 how the library would meet undergraduates' needs.

"Undergraduates need a much smaller library, of perhaps 100,000 volumes, made up chiefly of modern, replaceable books, to which they can be admitted without restriction and for which a simplified catalogue is available," Metcalf said.

The library was designed by the Boston architectural firm of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott, designers of University buildings including Sever Hall, Memorial Church, the Faculty Club, all the Houses built prior to 1949, many of the Yard dorms, Langdell Law Library and the Biological Laboratories.

The much-touted Poetry Room was designed by Swedish architect Alvar Aalto.

Construction on the new library began in June 1947. The cornerstone was laid Dec. 31, 1947, and the library's eight levels-two of which are used for underground storage-opened for business one year later.

Like the Boylston Hall renovations just last year, the building of Lamont caused Wigglesworth Hall residents many sleepless mornings.

In an on-line memory book the library compiled to mark its anniversary, William G. Crook Jr. '51 writes of "those crisp, clear mornings at 6 a.m. when a bricklayer would over-turn his four foot by two foot metal trough right under my bedroom window, and proceed to spend the next 30 minutes methodically beating every square inch of it with a shovel wielded over his head."

In the weeks preceding the grand opening, anticipation ran so high that night security guard Leo Shean reported staving off numerous curious undergraduates, some of whom went so far as to forge letters from President Conant authorizing them to see the site.

"It was thought to be a piece of architectural genius to fit as many floors and as many functions into the small amount of space that the University was willing to grant," says Heather E. Cole, current librarian of the Hilles and Lamont libraries.

Among its many technological wonders, the library boasted Ra-Tox venetian blinds, "the world's most modern windows" by Thermopane, Celotex acoustical ceilings, the Sikes "Seats of Knowledge," Art Metal Steel book stacks and a state-of-the-art air conditioning system by the G.A. Berman Co.

Vestiges of the past are still apparent everywhere, from the now-worn cork floors to the five or so typewriters tucked away in a reading room on level two.

Opening Day

On Jan. 3, 1949, Lamont Librarian Philip J. McNiff estimated that 7,200 curious undergraduates visited the newfangled library-only 1,000 of whom had actually come to study.

Francis M. Wilhoit '49, a second-semester senior at the time of Lamont's opening, shares his rather unusual story of opening day in the library's on-line memory book.

"As I was leaving," he writes, "I suddenly ran smack into one of the clear glass doors, which caused me to recoil in shame and to beat a hasty retreat."

The Crimson reported the event somewhat differently.

"Under the most severe misapprehension," the paper wrote, "was an unidentified sightseeing freshman who tried to leave the Farnsworth room through a full-length pane of glass. The glass, apparently designed with this in mind, withstood the shock, but the freshman suffered assorted head bruises and a bloody nose."

From the very start, Lamont received mixed reactions to its decor and design. Touted by many as the very best in new technology and engineered study space, the building garnered some criticism along with its praise even in the early years.

Its uniform lighting, comfortable chairs and easy access to the stacks were commended in review after review, article after article.

"Lamont Library is as modernistic as colored television," The Crimson opined on the library's opening day.

"The light in [the student's] cubicle (he discovers) is exactly the same in intensity as the light in every square foot he has covered since he entered the building," wrote a Harvard Alumni Bulletin reporter.

In his speech at the library's opening ceremony, President James B. Conant '14 extolled Lamont's virtues: "The conventional red tape of library bureaucracy has disappeared. The undergraduate in quest of knowledge or inspiration, whether he is self-propelled or motivated by dread of approaching examinations or papers to be written, can go directly to the shelves."

One undergraduate quoted in the Jan. 15, 1949, Harvard Alumni Bulletin said Lamont's atmosphere beat that of Widener with flying colors, calling the Widener reading room "a disturbed vastness about as conducive to study as the waiting room in Grand Central Station."

An alumni bulletin writer said, "[The undergraduate] doesn't walk into Gothic emptiness or Georgian hall. He walks straight into a bright world of books. He can lay hands on one almost before the door has closed behind him."

But its modern design, juxtaposed with the ivy-covered Wigglesworth and replacing the historic Dana-Palmer House, which was moved across the street, garnered much criticism and did not end up sparking a transformation of campus architecture, as many feared.

"It had more effect on other undergraduate libraries built in other places," Cole says.

Nevertheless, the negative feedback did come-hard and fast.

In a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald, John C. Poland of Brookline compared the new library to a "cheese factory," lamenting the library's departure from the prior "hasty but just return to the former and better architecture" demonstrated by the recently built colonial-style Yard dorms.

Another Herald letter to the editor proclaimed Lamont "the most hideous college building of its type in America." This writer also compared the library to a cheese factory, then modified his statement, writing, "It is worse than that, more like a garage or livery stable."

Shelf Life

Lamont began as a duplicate library, meaning its holdings were also available in less "open" settings. It remains so to this day, according to Cole.

The original catalog of 30,000 books was chosen by Edwin E. Williams, the first assistant librarian of Lamont, to provide undergraduates easy access to the books they were likely to need most often.

Williams assembled the list from course reading lists, lists of books in several other University reading rooms, the "Shaw List of Books for College Libraries" and book reviews in 200 publications from the previous two decades.

The compiled list was soon published in book form by Harvard University Press and became the industry standard.

"[The list] sold for years as 'the way' to start an undergraduate library," Cole says.

The Alumni Bulletin stated that Lamont contained duplicates of books in high demand at other University libraries. The example given was Hadley Cantril's The Invasion From Mars.

Many of the books were moved to Lamont from the Boylston Hall and Union reading rooms, which subsequently closed their doors.

Today, Lamont holds 200,000 titles. The vast majority of these are still duplicates of books in other libraries, Cole says, though the occasional unique edition or title will surface due to different buying schedules and unusual requests for course reading lists.

Those reading lists, Cole says, have expanded from a small and standard list of "Great Books" to focus more on primary sources. With this, she says, the library's collections have expanded.

With the "explosion of knowledge" after WWII, Cole says, "It seemed to us that they were reading more, there was more being published, and they were using more to teach."

But Cole says acquisitions work the other way as well. She says her staff expends an immense amount of time and energy on choosing new titles.

Cole explains that many times one of these new titles will show up on a course reading list one or two semesters later-a sure sign that her staff has done a good job.

The coming years will also continue the current trend of library overlap, Cole says.

"The growth of the need for interdisciplinary knowledge has been huge in the last 30 to 40 years," she says. "What people were expected to know at the end of an undergraduate course was changing."

The Fairer Sex

Pieter Greeff '58, one of the graduates with fonder memories of the library system, writes in the memory book, "The Lamont was well lit, intimate and blond while the Widener was stately, dignified and brunette."