It will look like the new library extension at night. Imagine walking up Ellis Ave. on a dark, winter evening and finding a glowing orb ahead. As you come closer, you'll see through the glass dozens of people sitting in identical positions, heads bent over laptops in concentration, like so many robots toiling for the mothership.
I could be for it, except I oppose automated shelving.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
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All I know is, those are going to be the most radioactive musicology journals in America.
You'll still be able to browse the stacks in the Reg, the stuff they're moving to the library is almost entirely periodicals / journals which isn't prone to the same sort of discovery that you have when you browse normal books in open stacks. It's also what's most rapidly growing and what takes up too much room in the Reg stacks.
The Grand Reading Room is pretty pretentious given there is not even finely oiled oak walls adorned with photos of dead white guys. Way to buck the campus tradition right across the street. Something like the All Encompassing Crystal Arc of Enduring Intellectual Achievement -emblazoned in multicolor, seasonally adjusted laser lights - would have been more subtle and in keeping with the minimalist cum modernist touch. They could also project faces of disheveled students onto it for good measure like at Millennium Park, with philosophical subtitles like, “In the AECAEIA, the book reads you?”
I was on campus today. It looks like a gaint construction site--no parking available (had to park on Cottage Grove), and I was duly informed that it would only get worse.
The effect parallels I. M. Pei's glass pyramid in the Louvre.
I think it looks like a giant callous.
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