Director: Charles M. Getchell, Jr.
Dedication: September 11, 2000
Architect: Centerbrook Architects and Planners
Contractor: FIP Construction, Inc.
Total Cost $13,000,000 Size 48,000 GSF
Collection 165,000 volumes and subsantial digitized and web-based resources
"Just wait until you see what's inside this place!" one student was overheard
telling another recently. Indeed, comments like this abound as Quinnipiac
University students, faculty, and staff discover their brand new Arnold Bernhard
Library. The institution, "Quinnipiac College" for many years, needed an
up-to-date library facility for its growing student body and evolving
curriculum. Housed in one of the first buildings erected when the school moved
to the present Mount Carmel Avenue campus in 1966, the College Library no longer
provided adequate space and support for its parent institution.
The early summer of 1996 marked the beginning of the design phase that would
lead to the construction of a stellar facility. Centerbrook Architects and
Planners, for years the school's sole architectural partner for design
development and new construction, produced the new library design. The final
product reflected a wide variety of input sources including survey data from
instruments that reached faculty, students and staff; consultations with library
staff; and site visits to five other colleges and universities that had recently
completed new construction on their libraries.
Senior partner Jefferson Riley and his principal associates, Leonard Wyeth and
Charles Muller, concentrated on a number of key issues. In addition to
increasing the size of the library, the design team spent many hours on how best
to incorporate technology and access to technology into the new structure. In
the fast-paced, ever-changing world that is higher education today, an academic library building needs to have the freedom and capability to adjust to projected
user needs and resources as best they can be defined.
Several years ago, the Association of College and Research Libraries, the
academic arm of the American Library Association used the phrase "Library As
Place" in its annual programs and messages. Librarian input to the design phase
of our new library focused on this phrase. The architects responded with a
design that is warm, open, and bathed in abundant natural light. Quinnipiac
University is located in a beautiful physical setting, and the Bernhard Library
takes full advantage of these surroundings. Rocking chairs and oversized leather
lounge chairs blend amicably with tables, study carrels, and computer
workstations in our facility.
As we moved to construction, the changes and improvements that lay ahead were
striking and inspiring. Seating capacity would jump from 225 to over 600. There
would be more than 600 data ports for laptop users; in the original library, only 24 ports existed. The number of public access computers jumped from 22 to
66, and the Bernhard Library would offer 15 group study rooms. The old College
Library had no group study rooms. The need for instructional space was addressed
by including a 30-seat classroom with a computer per seat and an eight-person
seminar room, also with a computer per seat. In the old structure, library
instruction sessions were held in the middle of the reference room. Additional
stacks and display areas for the print collection provided growth space for the
next 20 years. Quinnipiac's Library, like most others, provides a blend of
traditional print/non-print resources and newer electronic/web-based services
for its users. And finally, to accommodate these wonderful changes and
expansions, the building size doubled from 24,000 square feet to 48,000 square
feet.
A fascinating chapter in our library history at Quinnipiac University deserves
mention as well. Returning from the site visit trip in the fall of 1998, the Site Visitation Team (comprised of architects, the facilities director, and the
directors of the library and of instructional technology) wrestled with how to
stage the construction and where to place library services during the bricks and
mortar phase of the project. We eliminated the approach of dividing library
services and facilities into smaller units about campus. And we balked at the
frequently used approach of building an addition and moving library operations
into the new space; then renovating the older spaces and, finally, reassigning
staff and services to the expanded building. A new, 34,000 square foot
Facilities Building caught our eye. Scheduled for completion in the spring of
1999, this 'industrial strength' facility became the interim library operation
for fifteen months.
Named the "Pilot Library" by its new tenants, this building allowed us to keep
library services and collections intact and operational during the construction. The architects softened the industrial décor with drapes, carpet titles, and
other modifications necessary to enable a library to function in a foreign
structure. Seizing the opportunity to promote what lay ahead for students,
faculty, and staff, library staff took the wraps off new and expanded resources,
opened doors to more seats, more space, and more data ports than had previously
been available in the original College Library. We kept the community up to date
on the progress of the Arnold Bernhard Library through pictures, webcam access,
and endless updates at meetings throughout the construction phase. The 'ultimate
swing building' was a good home for one academic year and the flanking summers.
Throughout the entire design and construction processes, university development
staff worked tirelessly to raise funds for the new library. The generosity of
Mr. A. Van Bernhard, trustee emeritus of the school, and his family brought us the name for our new library. Van Bernhard gave one million dollars (as part of
a four million dollar gift in total) to name the new library for his father,
Arnold Bernhard. The senior Bernhard had invented Value Line Investment Survey,
a tool librarians know well. Many of us have updated this business reference
source in our careers. It was the perfect finish to this labor of love to have
our new university library named not only for someone with significant family
ties to the school and with a well established place in contemporary New England
and investment histories, but also for a gentleman who gave to librarianship
through his creation of Value Line.
The brand new Arnold Bernhard Library opened for business on Monday August 28,
2000, and the formal dedication took place on Monday September 11. Mr. Tom
Wolfe, esteemed author and social commentator addressed the audience in his own
unique style. On Friday October 6, 2000, Dr. Marshall Keys, former executive director of NELINET, spoke to a gathering of librarians to complete a month of
various celebrations in and about the new library. As colleagues and friends,
you are cordially invited to visit the Arnold Bernhard Library at any time. My
staff and I would be pleased to share the many wonders of this structure. Come
see one of the newest and most modern academic libraries in the country. Come
see 'Library As Place.'
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