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.

Poole's Plans

Before leaving Chicago I paused to read about the physical home of the The Newberry Library at 60 W. Walton Street.  Maybe I should rephrase that because if the Newberry was a home it would be called a mansion or even a palace.  Predictably, there was a fascinating story behind the design and construction of the building that drew me in like a lake trout in spring - I was hooked.  Houghton Wetherold’s meticulous article, The Architectural History of the Newberry Library, told the tale.  

Before even one stone was laid for the foundation of the library a passionate battle brewed about the design.  Walter Newberry (and his daughter and his wife) were long gone before the funding for the library became available in 1885 (see yesterday’s post). Eliphalet W. Blatchford and William H. Bradley, the first trustees, hired the eminent librarian Dr. William Frederick Poole to oversee the construction at the Newberry family homestead in 1887, the site was later moved to Washington Park.  Poole, a Yale graduate, had already been at the helm of the Boston Atheneum and The Chicago Public Library when he took charge at the Newberry.  He was a scholar and historian, in addition to being an expert in library administration.  He is described as, “brusque, unswerving, clever, endowed with tremendous energy and force of will”, not the type of character I’d like to get into an argument with.  

Braver men than I did argue with Poole, at the ALA meeting in 1881, about his library design ideas. Poole was against the cathedral type library (think Bates Hall or Rose Room but remember that both were yet to be built!) and argued that they were an inefficient use of space, had poor climate control, were too noisy, made it difficult to locate books and were a fire hazard (apparently he was a ‘practical pete’ and was not swayed by such things as inspiration or great beauty).  Instead he advocated for a library divided into separate rooms by subject matter, each with their own books on shelves that were low enough to allow sunlight from large windows.  Each room would have its own librarian.  Indeed the separate rooms solved the issues of space, fires, book location and solitude but librarians were not convinced that Poole’s proposal was the right solution.  What about scholars working on more than one subject?  Would there be enough natural light?  And how about the sheer number of librarians needed to staff all those rooms?  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post when these burning questions, and more, are answered...