FORWARD-LOOKING LIBRARY
Hunt Library at NC State
Earlier this week, we had the fun of touring the impressive Hunt Library at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Around here, the university is commonly known as just State. Good friends, Frank and Judy, were our hosts and arranged for a wonderful tour led by staff from the library development office.
The Hunt Library opened in 2013 and is a contemporary building of an unusual shape with glass and metal facades. Tall glass window walls allow the outside in with views of Lake Raleigh. Many spaces are long and expansive with great light and views punctuated by a variety of creative and unusual seating choices.
This library was one of the first to install a robotic book storage and retrieval system called bookBot. Almost 2 million books are stored in metal bins stacked 50 feet high. The books are in random order, but an order known to the system. We got to see behind the scenes and watch a bin of books being retrieved and brought out by Robot Bob. There are several robots and all but one have names. Our State magazine included an entertaining account by Scott Huler of what it’s like to be in this library.
Former, now deceased, university library director Susan Nutter was instrumental, possibly aggressively so, in gaining the libraries greater recognition on campus and in expanding the services and assistance they offered to both students and faculty. From audio labs to a maker space to a gaming studio, Hunt Library pushed the envelope.
Nutter also had an interest in furnishings, and Hunt features a wealth of stunning chairs by different designers in a wide range of colors.
While the backdrop is mostly neutral, as in white, there are punches of color everywhere making even big spaces inviting.
Several yellow staircases make a particularly bold statement. And yet, a student can still easily find a place for some quiet study in a room looking more like the traditional library of yore.
BONUS SUMMER READING: FAMILY DYNAMICS
Whistler by Ann Patchett
I am one of Ann Patchett’s fans, and I loved her new novel, Whistler. It’s a quiet book of reflection and review about one’s childhood and one’s choices, prompted by the return of a stepfather. The book opens with Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan looking at exhibits in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Having just been to the Met twice last month, I was with them immediately and could easily picture their movement through the galleries. Jonathan thinks a man is following them, Daphne dismisses the comment, and yet the man is indeed dogging their steps. They meet and Daphne re-connects with Eddie Triplett, the stepfather she has not seen since she was 9, and she is now 53.
Daphne’s parents divorced when she was a child, and her mother remarried twice; hence, Daphne had a father and two stepfathers, but her favorite was Eddie. What follows is both lovely and loving as Eddie and Daphne spend precious time together cherishing every encounter. Daphne re-visits childhood events, sharing and dissecting them with her sister Leda, who is a therapist. In the process, Daphne acquires an adult understanding of why her mother and Eddie separated and a new perspective on how her own life has been colored by the family disruptions of her youth. Highly recommended!
As I was reading this novel, I felt the echoes of an essay I’d read by Patchett some years before. The idea of several fathers stuck with me, so I did a bit of sleuthing and re-discovered “My Three Fathers” with the tagline “My problems were never ones of scarcity. I suffered from abundance.” It was in the September 28, 2020, issue of The New Yorker and is a touching account of how each of Ann Patchett’s fathers brought something different and important to her life. It too is worth reading. (~JWFarrington)
Note: All library photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)
