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Librarians and other lovers of learning perked up considerably with the announcement this spring of another major gift to Harvard from Katherine B. Loker--$17 million--the bulk of which will help buy renovations in the stacks of Widener Library (see "Cooked Books: Costly Rx for Libraries," May-June, page 78). Before the gift, the University Campaign had raised less than half of its goal for the library system, $78 million, which included $20 million for environmental protection of the 3.5 million books that live (and gradually decay) on Widener's 50 miles of shelves.
Fourteen million dollars of the Loker gift goes to Widener. The purpose of one million of the gift has yet to be disclosed. Two million helps create a new challenge fund for women's athletics; Loker was a sprinter in her day, and just missed qualifying for the U.S. team that competed in the 1932 Olympics.
As now envisioned, says Nancy Cline, Larsen librarian of Harvard College, the work to be done at Widener will cost more than the $20 million originally estimated. She and her staff are in the closing months of the architects' feasibility study of various options; at its conclusion, the projected costs will be clearer.
The "line of work," says Cline, will run across the building, east to west, at the foot of the grand staircase. Back of the line, to Massachusetts Avenue, rise the stacks. The reading rooms and offices on the Yard side of the line will be left alone, at least for this phase of the renovations. Cline has discovered that some years ago the library obtained the agreement of the Widener family to alter the light court at the center of the building, so long as alterations do not keep natural light from entering the Widener Memorial Room. She thinks it "conceivable" that a couple of floors could be constructed in the court to house the bulky equipment that will run the new environmental-control and electrical systems for the stacks, and to create additional space for readers. A managed reading room would go here, where patrons could consult precious or otherwise vulnerable volumes under supervision. Construction might begin as soon as the summer of 1999, says Cline, or more likely in 2000, and the hammering and hubbub will last about two years, depending on how many restrictions are placed upon the hammerers. One formidable challenge ahead, she admits, is staging the work cleverly, so that, for example, "we move all those books once rather than thrice."