Cornell Makes Plans for $5 Million Project of Expanding Library System

ITHACA, N.Y., Oct. 12--Plans for a $5,000,000 Cornell library expansion program are now on the drawing board, Provost Sanford S. Atwood revealed to the CRIMSON today. Included in the program will be a huge two-million-volume structure along with extensive renovations in the present University Library.

"The new building, on which we hope to start construction in two or three years," Atwood said, "will help solve our vitally important library problem."

The new library will be principally for graduate students and faculty members and is designed to relieve the serious overcrowding in the present University edifice.

"A special committee of the Cornell Council has taken charge of raising money for the program," Stephen A. McCarthy, head librarian of Cornell said. "What we hope for is several very large donations,' he added, "since the last thing we want to do is to run a Community Chest Drive. The new library is available, but it will come at a rather steep price."

The site of the new building will be where Boardman Hall now stands. Renovation of the University Library is designed to add more reading room space to that building while the new construction will handle the overflow of books from the present study center. When the program is completed, Cornell's entire library system will contain nearly four-million volumes, McCarthy estimated.

Atwood added that the program has been under surveillance for more than a year. The Library Board jelled the plan after hearing the report of Keyes D. Metcalf, librarian emeritus of Harvard, and Fred C. Wood, an engineering consultant, he added. Metcalf helped design Harvard's Lamont library and has been a central figure in many college study center expansions.

"We have cleared the program through the development office," Atwood said, "and the next step is to find a suitable design for the new building. We very definitely want its architecture to integrate with the rest of the college." Cornell has hired Charles Warner and Associates, an architectural firm in New York, to design the structure.

"Our chief aim," McCarthy said, "is to give the students more room in which to study. To do this, we will have to move hundreds of thousands of volumes out of the present library."

In the west end of the present structure, an old stack will be gutted, and in its place, three more reading rooms will be constructed. A mezzanine floor, holding another study room, will be built between the ceiling and the present main study hall.

McCarthy estimated that the seating capacity of the University Library would be increased by these additions from 400 to 1,000 while the shelf capacity will be decreased from 900,000 volumes to 125,000 volumes.