Poole Battles On

from University of Illinois Archives

When we last left our intrepid librarian, William Poole, he was attempting to convince the library world of his superior design for large public libraries (see March 6th post)   Just as Poole outlined his grand scheme there was a new trend emerging in the library world...The Stacks.  Harvard’s Gore Library, under the direction of Justin Winsor, has just built an addition using the stack principle, ie; creating a central location for books on large free standing metal shelves.  The books were accessed by the librarian and brought to patrons in the reading room.  The benefits were clear and overwhelming:  large quantities of books were easy to store, find, re-shelve and protect and they were very hard to steal.  
Poole did not acquiesce, in fact he criticized the design at Gore Hall,  The Library of Congress and The Boston Public Library.  He definitely did not suffer from self-doubt.  By the mid-1880s most librarians were convinced of the superiority of the stack system and saw flaws in Poole’s “decentralized plan”.. but not Poole.  He went onto have an epic battle with Henry Ives Cobb, the new architect for the Newberry Library who, after touring libraries in the US and Europe, had determined that some type of stack system was most efficient.  He held his ground and would not cave into Poole’s design.  They proceeded to argue, bicker, disagree and quarrel over the design of the library for the next two years.  Poole was relentless, he hired his own architect to create alternate plans, wrote letters, begged for support and finally he won.  He wrote that “Cobb surrendered” and was jubilant that there would be no stacks and no soaring reading room at the Newberry.  In fact the final plan was almost exactly the same as the first plan Poole presented in 1881 - in ten years his thinking had not budged.

I wonder what Newberry would have thought of Poole’s great egotistical battle for the design of a library meant to “enlighten the human mind”  and I wonder what Poole would think if he could come back and see how libraries have evolved thanks to decades of understanding and reflection about their use.
Perhaps Poole should have read John Adams quote,  “facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”  
Then again, it sure is easy being a Monday morning quarterback and taking for granted that my library books are easy to find in the stacks of my library.