Chapter 32. I Return to My Job as Special Assistant in the Research Services Department

I returned to my old job as Special Assistant for Planning Management in the Research Services Department on May 1, 1982, five days after the deadline I had set in my letter. I was welcomed with open arms by my former colleagues. This helped to erase from my psyche the hurt that had been dealt me by a Library bureaucrat. Nevertheless in the eleven months that I had spent in the Library Environment Resources Office, I had managed to get the total renovation planning of the two older buildings off the ground and running.

Although I was no longer on the staff of the Library Environment Resources Office, I continued to be heavily involved in the work of the renovation and restoration of the two older buildings. That was because the divisions of the Research Services Department occupied much of the space in both buildings. As the department’s planning officer, I was continually called to meetings with Mr. Trew, with the Architect of the Capitol, and the associate architects Arthur Cotton Moore and his designers and engineers to resolve space and design problems related to the renovation and restoration work of the department’s divisions. Many of my hours and days were spent in this kind of work.

In addition I was the one who was called by the department’s divisions to help solve the many emergencies that arose during the course of the work of the contractors in both buildings, which was going on simultaneously in the two structures. The Architect of the Capitol and Dr. Boorstin had decided that it was strategically in the best interests of the Library, the public, and the staff to have the work of the renovation scheduled in phases in a portion of each building in order to disrupt as little as possible service to the Congress and its other clienteles. While going through the various phases of the project it was inevitable that emergencies occurred from time to time that not only affected the work of the staff but also interrupted the service to the library’s users.

On a number of occasions, emergencies occurred because of contractor errors and when contractors neglected to alert or consult staff that might be affected on those occasions when they were to perform work or use materials that might affect not only the staff’s ability to perform its work or even might have affected the health and safety of the staff and the public. Power outages or power losses occurred after contract workers had left for the day. Each time this was due to contractor error or worker neglect. On other occasions during the renovation and restoration of the John Adams Building, it had to be evacuated because of contract work activity. These were times when the staff and public found that it was impossible to breathe the air in the building and had to be evacuated immediately. One evacuation was made necessary when a floor sealant being used by contract workers produced such a heavy and extremely sickening odor that it nauseated the staff and readers working in the division reading rooms and offices of the building. Another occurred when what seemed to be an acrid, chemical smell permeated the John Adams Building as a result of work being done on a heat exchanger. The work of the staff and reader service was also affected by required asbestos removal in various places. As the department’s Special Assistant, I was the person called by the division chiefs to deal with these and other problems they faced. I have often
said that I had one of the most interesting jobs in the Library of Congress. Excitement seemed to go along with the job. For example, I was at my desk in my office working late one winter night. At about 9:00 P.M. I heard what sounded like a heavy rush of water. It seemed to be happening in a slop sink closet that was located to the right of my office in the main office area known as the northwest pavilion. On opening the door of the closet I was faced with a serious flood situation.  Torrents of water were pouring down through the closet, and on down to the floors below! I immediately called for help from the Collections Maintenance staff and the Library Buildings staff, and then ran up to the next floor to the Hispanic Division where I knew parts of its book collection would be endangered by the water because it was directly above. I was met there by the Collection Maintenance staff who had brought large plastic sheets to cover the book stacks. We managed to get the majority of the books covered. Fortunately the small amount of books located in the area closest to where the water was coming down were the only ones damaged. The Library Buildings staff had rushed to the attic above the areas in question and discovered a broken attic window. The water lines located there had frozen and burst. The Library Buildings staff fixed the window and made quick plumbing repairs stopping the flow of water. That was one of several nights in my career at the Library of Congress that I did not leave the library until midnight because of one or another emergency. The others are ones that I have decided to forget!

I never had a dull day during my entire career in that magnificent library! My job changed and developed from the time it was established by Paul Berry. While there were many routine administrative duties, there were those other specific areas of responsibility that I have cited that made my job so very interesting.

The year 1987 was marked by the closing of the Main Reading Room for renovation and the retirement of Daniel d. Boorstin as Librarian of Congress. Dr. Boorstin had presided over the planning of the renovation of the Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Buildings. The finished drawings and specifications as worked out by Architects Arthur Cotton Moore Associates in conjunction with the Architect of the Capitol had incorporated structures known as Office Colonnades in some of the larger areas of the Jefferson Building known architecturally as curtains. They had been approved by the Librarian because Arthur Cotton Moore had convinced him that they would provide much needed additional floor space, and apparently because the design of the Colonnade had won an architectural award.

As a long time library space planner who has always subscribed to and followed the philosophy and rules of space planning found in the Librmjz profession’s bible for space planning entitled Planning Academic and Research Libraries by Harvard University’s Keyes Metcalf, I found it hard to agree that the construction of the mammoth, fixed two level structure known as the Office Colonnade in the beautiful curtain spaces of the Library of Congress either added to the beauty or added much more usable floor space in the Library’s most beautiful building on Capitol Hill. One of the basic tenets that I have subscribed to is that openness is to be maintained in planning all areas of a library building not only for its current needs but also to provide flexibility in the use of the library’s space in the future as changes in the use of the library’s space might occur in the years to come. The introduction of the fixed Office Colonnades in the curtain spaces of the Jefferson Building has made any change in the use of that space in future years impossible, that is, without the great cost that would be entailed in the demolition of the Colonnades, should any future Librarian of Congress find the need to make a major change in the use of the space now encumbered by those huge installations.

Even though the Office Colonnades provide a mezzanine which the architects had said would provide additional space, the staff who have occupied the Colonnades have found that there is a loss of usable space at floor level for the following reasons: First, the Colonnade structure like a huge boat, placed in the center of the large curtain spaces, has necessarily left five foot wide corridors as passageways on either side of the entire length of the Colonnades, leaving a comparatively small amount of usable space between the full length of the left and right walls of the Colonnade, which are made up of glass-paned doors, which are architectural features and not usable doorways. Usable floor space at floor level within the Colonnade is further reduced by the steel posts that support the mezzanine floor above. The walls of glass doors and the posts make it difficult to locate desks, vertical files and other necessary equipment, making work spaces tight, and cluttered. The spaces fore and aft of the Colonnades have turned out to be spaces that are difficult to use in a practical way. The Office Colonnade may have won Architect Arthur Cotton Moore an award for its unusual design, however, some staff who have been assigned work space in an Office Colonnade have found it to be ergonomically impractical.

Although Arthur Cotton Moore’s Office Colonnade is no great example of openness as far as library architecture is concerned, nevertheless Dr. Boorstin’s legacy as far as the use of the Library is concerned is one of openness! As one who believed that the Library of Congress was “the People’s Library,” he is credited with hang ordered the opening of the Jefferson Building’s massive bronze doors, at the top of the great stone front stairway. They had been closed to the public several years earlier during Mr. Mumford’s term as Librarian of Congress for safety and security reasons, and because the entrance at ground floor level had been deemed more user friendly for the handicapped and the elderly who had found the great stone staircase difficult to climb. Dr. Boorstin believed that since the great doors led directly into the Great Hall and from there right into the Main Reading Room, people should be allowed to take that route into the Library if they felt so inclined. As I mentioned earlier in this account, this entrance into the Great Hall of the Library was open on my arrival as a new staff member in 1970, and that I found the entrance exciting and breathtaking because of the beauty of the Great Hall and its proximity to the most beautiful reading room in the nation. There was no question that the entrance was a better introduction to the Library architecturally than the ground floor entrance and it most certainly brought the public into
the Library’s premier reading room more quickly, and so it was reasonable for Dr. Boorstin to reinstate that entrance as the Library’s main entrance. He also ordered the removal of curtains that had served as a privacy screen and a noise baffle for the reading desks located on either side of the passageway at the west entrance of the reading room in order to make the reading room more inviting.

Dr. Boorstin’s open door policy was a smashing success! However, in addition to readers and scholars who came to use the library’s vast resources, it brought in many tourists who only succeeded in disturbing the bonafide users of the Main Reading Room. Until the day I retired, I recall the reference librarians continued to fight the battle of trying to steer the tourists to the visitor’s observation gallery above.

On March 10, 1986, the tourist problem paled into insignificance when major unrest occurred in the Main Reading Room precipitated by an act of Congress. In one of its attempts to control the deficit and balance the budget the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act was enacted. It made major cuts in the Library’s funding, which made it necessary for the Library to reduce staff and shorten the hours of the reading room. As a result the reading room was closed on Sundays and all evenings except Wednesday evening.

A band of readers organized to protest the reductions in library service under “Books Not Bombs” as their battle cry, staged a sit-in in the Main Reading Room, refusing to leave at 5:30 P.M. the new evening closing time. I recall that the Library Administration took no action the first two nights, thinking the protest would not continue after a few nights. On the third night when it appeared that the protesters intended to continue their sit-in every night until 9:30 P.M. which had been the normal closing time, the administration on advice of its legal counsel, started to have the protesters arrested. Eighteen arrests were made. This of course made the newspapers, radio and TV, and had its repercussions in the halls of Congress.

By July the Congress had passed a supplemental appropriations bill, which provided the necessary funds to allow the Library to restore the reading hours that had been cut. It took the ire of the Library’s regular readers to show the Library Administration and the members of Congress how they felt about the services of the nation’s library. The Library went back to its normal hours on July 10, 1986, much to the relief of the reading room staff who felt that the Library’s rapport with its readers had been damaged. The dedicated reference librarians who staffed the Main Reading Room soon restored that rapport and the reputation of the library and its ability to provide continuing excellent reference service during hours that met the needs of its readers.

Service to readers in the Main Reading Room continued without interruption until December 9, 1987 when the library’s renovation schedule made it necessary to close it temporarily, for approximately one year, according to the Architect of the Capitol, in order to restore it to its original architectural beauty and condition. The European, Hispanic, Science, and Rare Book and Special Collections reading rooms were already in temporary and smaller locations because of the renovation. As a result those of us in the Research Services Department Office and the General Reference Directorate responsible for renovation planning, through well thought out advance planning, arranged to provide general reference assistance in the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room in the Thomas Jefferson Building and in the Social Science Reading Room in the John Adams Building. The recently expanded adjacent Computer Catalog Center and Photocopy Center in the Adams Building along with speedy general book delivery service from the Jefferson Building collections softened the impact of the closing of the Main Reading room, so that readers accepted the temporary change in reading rooms. As it turned out the Architect’s estimate that the Main Reading Room would be closed for a year proved to be wishful thinking. It took three years to complete its renovation. It would be 1990 before it would be reopened.