June 10, 2008

TO: The Princeton Seminary Community

FROM: Stephen D. Crocco

RE: Update on “A Theological Library in Service to the Church in the World”

Long before Luce Library was built, the Seminary had plans to renovate Speer Library. There have been a number of studies and documents in the last two decades about the Speer project. This study grew out of several site visits to newly renovated libraries and numerous discussions held over many months by a “working committee” consisting of Adrian Backus, Julie Dawson, Ira Fink (consultant), Bill French, John Gilmore, Joan Gotwals (trustee), German Martinez, Sandy McNutt, Rose Mitchell, Kathie Sakenfeld, Richard Young, and me. Although the working committee and library department heads made valuable contributions to the discussion over those months, the need to turn a fruitful and detailed conversation into a vision document fell to me.

Special thanks go to Iain Torrance and trustees Mary Lee Fitzgerald and Heather Haaga for arranging the January 2007 trustee meeting to visit the Huntington Library. Library Director David Zeidberg gave a presentation on the new Munger Research Center—by all accounts a model library and a model procedure for moving from idea to construction. At that meeting we also heard from Chris Gane, University Vice-Principal for Library and Information Services, who shared his perspective on the University of Aberdeen’s plan to create a landmark library building.

In the Spring of 2007, the working committee was reformed to include Backus, Fink, Gilmore, Gotwals, Martinez, and me.  (Professors Richard Young and Karlfried Froehlich joined the committee in the Summer of 2008.) In the Fall of 2007, the Seminary hired the firm of Einhorn, Yafee, and Prescott to do conceptual studies and design work. EYP attracted our attention because of the work it did on renovations of three libraries at Harvard University, including extensive renovations at the Weidner Library. Since last October, EYP has conducted numerous studies of the present buildings, studied the library program, made preliminary drawings about how the program could fit into existing and new spaces, and made cost estimates.  Seminary trustees are considering all this information at the present time.

The document below began as a description of the “ideal” Princeton Seminary Library. It has been updated several times to reflect the work of architects and others as we have discovered what is and is not possible and desirable. Although I have not entirely abandoned the concept of an “ideal” library, I have redirected the focus to identifying a mission for the library that grows out of the history, commitments, resources, and responsibilities of the Seminary. I invite your comments and suggestions. Please submit them to library.vision@ptsem.edu and I will share them with the working committee.

A Theological Library in Service to the Church in the World:

The Vision for a Princeton Seminary Library Complex

Stephen D. Crocco

James Lenox Librarian

H. Richard Niebuhr started his career as a college president. The question pressing upon the young administrator was, “Why does a self-sufficient college preparing men for seminary need a gymnasium and an endowment?” The answer, he discovered, was that gymnasiums and endowments were rapidly becoming standard features of accredited colleges. In the 1926 Elmhurst College yearbook, Niebuhr conceded that any educational institution needs to attain certain standards set by the culture. But, he warned, “with all this emphasis upon standardization we may lose sight of the fact that our ultimate purpose is not the attainment of a common standard but [the attainment] of an effective individuality … The standard must represent a minimum and not a maximum, if it is not to become a source of danger.”  

ATTAINMENT OF STANDARDS FOR MODERN RESEARCH LIBRARIES

Because the renovation of the Princeton Seminary Library (PSL) comes relatively late in the game of renovating research libraries, it will inevitably reflect standards—as Niebuhr might say—or standard features that are now widely accepted in renovation and new construction. They are presupposed in any “ideal” design for the PSL, but they are not the ideal. Standard features can be grouped roughly as follows:

Building Efficient, Smart, and Accessible Structures 

• Building and ADA code compliance
• Flexible floor plan/multipurpose construction
• Energy efficient systems and “green” construction.  (LEED status)

Addressing the Digital Turn in Librarianship

• Spaces for managing information as well as holding it
• Robust AC power and wireless capability/smart rooms  
• Focus on the unique: Special Collections

Creating a New Learning Culture: The “Barnes and Noble–izing” of Libraries

• Teaching and learning spaces, project rooms, group study rooms, and living rooms
• Gathering points for library and technology services 
• Public spaces for exhibitions, events, and receptions, including a café

Standard features for research libraries have changed drastically since the 1980s. A renovated PSL will be current with the latest standard features of modern research libraries. No matter what else we do, the PSL will accommodate the latest trends in librarianship, ranging from managing digital content to providing Web services to supporting new styles of teaching, learning, and research.

The “information commons,” one of the current buzz words in library construction and renovation, has become a standard feature of college and university libraries.  The PSL will surely have its own version. An information commons concept is ideally suited to bring library patrons up to speed in a modern information environment. Asbury Theological Seminary has actually re-branded its entire library an information commons. The primary goal for such libraries is to enable students to learn the skills necessary to navigate their way through the digital environment.

However, an information commons is not adequate as an organizing principle for a forward-looking research library. Its weakness is that it lifts up as an end or goal what has already become a standard, namely that students and faculty have access to a convenient suite of services to enhance personal productivity in a digital era. To celebrate an information commons concept is or soon will be akin to celebrating computers or “reference” services—things now widely taken for granted.

One key difference between the information commons/information literacy model and the information architecture model we aspire to here has to do with the patron-base. The information literacy model (and the concept of an “information commons”) concentrates on improving the skills of registered students. This model is particularly important when incoming students have had little experience using digital technologies in college and require additional formation. The information architecture model concentrates on providing resources for a broader audience of students and scholars in a scholarly discipline. This model is most successful when institutions have amassed intellectual capital which they wish to share not only with registered students, but with scholars and students around the world.

These models are not mutually exclusive, of course; the information architecture model assumes that information literacy is a standard embraced by the Seminary. However, the proposed vision of “digitizing the library” below suggests that the PSL will make a real contribution in the development of information architectures for a worldwide audience.

In this document, little attention is given to current library operations. That is not to minimize them. Certainly those responsible for planning the renovation of the PSL will fail if they do not succeed in surpassing the basic library needs for every group of library users—students, faculty, alumni/ae, researchers, and library and IT staff. This prediction runs parallel to the simple fact that our collections, combined with those of Princeton University, will support virtually any theological curriculum as well as any general area of faculty research. The point is that a vision to do what everyone else has done and is doing is hardly a vision. That being said, any vision for the PSL will build on these standard features.

A Brief History of the Library Project

In the mid-1980s, the Seminary planned an addition to Speer Library for Special Collections (rare books, manuscripts, and archives). Building codes for an addition required that the entire Speer building be brought up to current code. That created a project more expensive and involved than the Seminary was willing to entertain. As a result, the “addition” was reconceived as a new building and built forty feet from Speer, with a bridge connecting the two libraries. While the problems with the infrastructure and appearance of the Speer building were not forgotten, the Speer project was put on the back burner. 

The Seminary continues to improve Speer where there is a sufficient energy payback, when it must make repairs, or to address building and safety codes. But steam lines and windows need to be replaced, the roof is at the end of its life cycle, electrical capacity needs to be increased, and so forth. These mundane matters were behind the plan to renovate Speer Library. Beyond the infrastructure, the renovation must allow for modernizing the fixtures, furnishings, and equipment of the Speer building, some of which are original to 1957, the year it opened. The high point of the renovation will be the creation of a welcoming and comfortable library fully equipped for the digital age, whether Speer is renovated or replaced.

AN EFFECTIVE INDIVIDUALITY FOR THE PSL

As Niebuhr observed, there is always a danger that by embracing standard features, an institution will lose sight of its effective individuality, that is, its unique mission. The interesting and important question in all this is whether Princeton Seminary’s mission will drive the PSL to do or be anything more than a great research library, distinct from others only by virtue of its particular collections. 

The Proposed Mission of the PSL

In a renovated or new facility, the PSL will meet or exceed all pertinent building and program standards for research libraries. In addition to its current services and collecting emphases, the PSL will become a major partner in the effort to digitize theological texts and develop information architecture for scholars, be the home to one of the most extensive theological libraries anywhere, and be a broker of books and digital texts to and from the Majority World. In a word, the mission of the PSL is to become a theological library in service to the church in the world. 

1.  “Digitizing the Library”

A decade ago, the idea of “digitizing the library” was a pipe dream. Large-scale digitization technology is now in place and digital libraries are growing rapidly. We believe that enough copyright issues will be resolved in ways that make these digital libraries more than a repository of titles in the public domain. In January 2008, the PSL signed an agreement with Microsoft and the Internet Archive to provide large numbers of out of copyright theological books for Microsoft’s “Live Search Books” program.  Unfortunately, Microsoft dropped its book digitization program in May 2008. In response, the PSL, the Internet Archive, and other “Microsoft libraries”are working together to find ways to continue the project.  At this point, there are good reasons to be optimistic.

The PSL aspires to move its long-standing commitment to research and publication into the era of information architecture. We have joined research libraries and centers which are shifting resources to metadata librarians and programmers, charging them to work alongside scholars to develop specialized information tools. The goal is to harness emerging technologies to create new information services (including online digital libraries, scholarly wikis, and federated search tools) for the benefit of students and scholars working in a variety of theological disciplines. For example, our Center for Barth Studies has partnered with Alexander Street Press and the Barth Archive in Basel to make a digital edition of Karl Barth’s entire corpus available to scholars at universities throughout the world. We are gearing up to do something similar with the works of Abraham Kuyper and the history of Princeton Seminary.

2.  A Storage Facility and Theological Library of Record

Many libraries and other repositories without access to off-site storage are forced to weed materials or build expensive storage spaces. We propose to create a million-volume-plus facility for theological libraries and other repositories with storage needs. Paper and microform materials stored there could be retrieved and returned according to pre-established policies. This “pool house”—a concept first articulated by Charles Willard several years ago—could save libraries millions of dollars in construction costs and allow these libraries to create space-intensive services in what were once book stacks. 

We believe participating libraries would soon recognize that they do not need to own their own copies of rarely used materials. With this realization, to go a step beyond Willard, those items “stored” in the facility would become part of a theological library of record (TLR@Princeton). Items not already in a digital library could be digitized upon request, pending copyright. Libraries facing space problems could withdraw paper copies of books with the full confidence that the Internet Archive has preserved high quality digital images and the TLR@Princeton has preserved physical copies of the books. Depending on copyright restrictions and assuming books were not in the digital library already, libraries wishing to borrow one of “their” books would receive notice when they were added to the database—usually within a few hours rather than the days or weeks it takes to borrow a book by traditional interlibrary loan.  Such a notion would affect traditional concepts of “ownership” and the way accreditation agencies understand and use it to assess institutions.

Paper books, particularly those on heavily acidic paper, will not last forever. The TLR@Princeton will engage in paper deacidification as part of its program to protect last and best copies of paper books. In the meantime, the best chance for keeping paper books intact is to keep them in a highly regulated environment, common in high-density facilities. 

With this plan, the TLR@Princeton would go on record as being open to acquiring and storing the entire literature of theology as each volume becomes available.

3.A Theological Library in Service to the Church in the World

Digital Library Collection

It is a short step from creating the TLR@Princeton to turning it into a theological library in service to the church for the world. With an influx of little used titles from libraries, the TLR@Princeton would work to supplement mass digitization projects by adding value to existing files and actively pursuing materials not yet in the digital library. Potentially, any institution or individual with Internet access could have access to these digital texts. Similarly, any institution or individual could request a digital copy for an as yet undigitized book, which could immediately be added to the database. This digital library could also be made available on terabyte-sized hard drives in parts of the world where the Internet is not yet stable. 

Theological Book Network

We propose inviting the Theological Book Network (TBN) to act as the receiving agent for the TLR@Princeton. The mission of the TBN is “to provide quality academic books and journals to the underresourced libraries of seminaries and colleges in Africa, Asia,Eastern Europe, and Latin America” (www.theologicalbooknetwork.org). As the receiving agent, the TBN would accept books from libraries, scholars, and other donors who embrace the dual mission of sending books overseas and building the TLR@Princeton. In exchange for the right to select a small number of books for the TLR@Princeton, the PSL will house the east coast operation of the TBN, significantly reducing its overall costs and increasing its efficiency.

Digital Librarianship

The international scope of the PSL’s outreach—significantly enhanced by the presence of the TBN—sets the scene for collaboration between the PSL and theological library networks and libraries around the world. We will use these connections to establish an internship program to train “digital librarians” from the Majority World. Our hope is that these digital librarians will not only broker digital texts to their countries but also take a lead in digitizing theological texts from their countries and brokering them to the more developed portions of the world. We believe this exchange in theological literature will also help generate indigenous theological work and support local publishing efforts.

A Theological Library of Record for the World

With the TLR@Princeton in place, there is every reason to encourage libraries in the Majority World to deposit materials in Princeton, for digitization, dissemination, and preservation. In places where political unrest is a reality, rare archival and manuscript materials can be shipped to Princeton, digitized, and the originals returned at an appropriate time. The TBN’s expertise in shipping books overseas can be turned to shipping books back to North America. 

CONCLUSION

The plan to renovate Speer Library or build a new library and to fine-tune Luce Library is an expensive proposition, both in terms of bringing the PSL up to current standards and creating the new spaces necessary to implement the vision described here. However, if carefully planned and adequately funded, the new PSL will meet or exceed every pertinent standard for renovated research libraries in the twenty-first century. On this foundation, the PSL will build its special programs and emphases, which grow out of its history and mission, and create a theological library for the service of the church in the world.