Cathedrals and computers

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I used to love to study in the hushed cathedral of knowledge that was the Harper Library (this was the best picture I could find online — I actually attended Chicago a little more recently than the picture suggests). The reading room was modeled after the gothic cathedrals of the 12th century, an obvious nod to the architecture of Oxford and Cambridge, the ultimate cathedrals of knowledge (the photo at right is Chartres Cathedral, perhaps the ultimate cathedral of cathedrals). By placing books in this context, the architects of Chicago seemed to be elevating the status of the book to one of almost divine reference. The stained glass windows were colored not with pictures of the saints, but with the coats of arms of the major universities of the world: Harvard, Princeton, the Sorbonne, and, of course, Oxford and Cambridge.

Kim White believes that this reverence for the book is an essential feature of the way libraries catalog knowledge. When we go to places like the Harper Reading Room, with its lofty ceilings and ancient bound volumes, we come away with an elevated impression of the status of books, and indeed, of all knowledge. Now, with resources like Google Print, we don’t even need to enter the library to gain access to the knowledge.

Of course, even back at Chicago, if I needed to get real research done, I had to head over to the hypermodern Regenstein Library, with room for miles and miles of stacks, and computerized catalogs. After a while, I found myself studying at the “Reg” more and more, and at Harper less and less. Perhaps I felt intimidated by Harper’s lofty ceilings. Perhaps I appreciated the proximity to greater “real” stores of knowledge. Perhaps I simply liked the fact that the Reg was closer to my favorite coffee shop. Indeed, eventually I gave up on studying in the library altogether and set up my notebooks and reading material in the coffee shop itself.

But what of this idea that libraries should be reverent spaces that show the importance of books by their very architecture? Harper Library certainly creating a lasting impression on me (however little I ended up actually using the place). When I arrived at Columbia to start graduate school, I was shocked to see that students didn’t treat the library with the same dignity I had seen at Chicago. Even in the grand reading room, students were chatting in normal voices, passing notes, asking each other out on dates. Worse, many books that were supposed to be in the stacks were simply missing. I mentioned this to a friend who worked in interlibrary loan at another school, and he said of Columbia, “yeah — great catalog, terrible stacks.”

Now there’s hardly any reason to physically enter the library. With most journals available online and books becoming seemingly less relevant, what’s the point? Is it the same that I’m typing these words on a computer in my kitchen as I finish eating my microwaved broccoli pot pie? Would my words be more profound if I had written them with a quill pen under the stained glass of Harper Library? (If I was there, I could at least have gotten a better picture of the place!)

I love cathedrals, don’t get me wrong, but I think the notion that libraries need to be like cathedrals is a little wrong-headed. The University of Chicago and other 19th century institutions were built to look like Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford and Cambridge look the way they do because they were built during the gothic architectural period, when the world’s most famous cathedrals were also built. But do cathedrals really represent knowledge? Mark Twain did some of best work leaning over his pool table. Should libraries look like pool halls?

However, if all knowledge ends up being framed by a Dell Inspiron (or an Apple iBook, depending on your preference), should we be satisfied with that, either? One thing the gothic (or neo-gothic) edifice does is to give us confidence (overconfidence?) in the permanence of knowledge. Stone temples can last for thousands of years; meanwhile MoMa in New York and the Pompidou Center in Paris have already required refurbishing, less than half a century after they were built.

The University of Washington in Seattle where I grew up has a library with a grand neo-gothic reading room, even bigger than Harper Library. However, there was no room for books, so stacks were tacked onto the back in the dullest imaginable 1950s architecture. The stacks, of course, are where you go to get the information; the reading room is really just a frame for all that knowledge. Now we have tiny, mobile frames that can access virtual “stacks” of information that are seemingly limitless in scope. I can take my frame to the Chartres Cathedral or the McDonald’s at exit 28 and access the same information. In some ways, the new frame is better than the old one: I can actually get to my stacks without leaving the cathedral. The question is, now that we don’t actually need to enter the cathedral to access the knowledge, will anyone want to build cathedrals anymore?