JUL Central

by
Paul K. Conkin

I. The Perfect Library

I want to tell a story about the building in which I am writing this essay. Not about the long effort to gain a separate library building at Vanderbilt, or about the process that led to the founding of the Joint University Libraries system in 1936. The first director of JUL, Augustus

Frederick Kuhlman
Primary designer of JUL Central

The next, intimidating goal for JUL was a new central library building, a library essential for strong graduate programs at the three institutions. It would provide a new home for the main academic library at Vanderbilt (heretofore located in crowded quarters in Old Main), and for the Library of the School of Religion (a library also critical to the mission of Scarritt), but supplement rather than absorb the other decentralized libraries, including a large educational library at Peabody, the only library in Nashville that met national criteria for graduate work. Despite the great depression, a fund drive to gain two million dollars for various JUL projects succeeded by 1938, with $600,000 raised locally. Vanderbilt contributed a needed site that was as close as possible to each of three campuses. Detailed planning for the new building began in 1938; construction in 1939. The depression, which so imperiled fund raising, proved a great blessing in the construction phase, with costs that now seem unbelievably low (the contract for the construction of the building, less plumbing, heating and air conditioning, was for $475,000; the total cost around $600,000). The new library, which almost everyone soon referred to (inaccurately) as JUL (JUL correctly refers to all the libraries in the system), opened for student use on 24 September 1941. The formal and elaborate dedication ceremonies occurred on 5-6 December, but with final construction details not completed until at least a month later during the opening weeks of American participation in World War II.

Kuhlman's Vision

Kuhlman was the primary designer of JUL Central, although a building planning committee

My task in this brief essay is to clarify the design elements that fulfilled Kuhlman's utopian dreams and that led to a very special library. Of course, any library has to meet the unique needs of those who are to use it. JUL Central, by the original conception, was to be a graduate level library, serving the needs of the already large graduate enrollment at Peabody and a relatively new, growing Ph.D. program at Vanderbilt. At the same time, it was to serve the undergraduate needs of the three campuses, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Vanderbilt science majors continued to use the libraries developed in biology, geology, chemistry, and physics, and which later merged into the present Science and Engineering Library, while Peabody undergraduates in educational fields had their own library on the Peabody campus. Law and Medical Students had their own libraries, while the large music program at Peabody had a small library in the Social Religious building. The School of Religion library, although housed in JUL Central, remained a separate entity, with its own director, staff, policies, and stack space (the south part of stack two).

A New Library

The library was not intended as an architectural gem. Money did not allow this. But from the beginning, Kuhlman and the head architect, Henry Hibbs of Nashville, wanted an attractive building, one that would please the local donors. The main building, as originally planned, comprised a central tower (approximately 91' by 116') of fourteen stack floors (only eight were completed in the first phase) with eight-feet ceilings (this expansibility all but required a flat roof, of asphalt and pebbles, with copper flashing and down spouts). In what became very confusing later with open stacks, each of the public areas in this central part, which were numbered as floors one to three, matched up with two separately numbered stack floors. Long wings, three stories high, which contained all the reading rooms, flanked the tower to the north and south. They were not symmetrical because of a slightly narrowed 15' extension to the east of both wings, allowing 144' by 30' reading rooms. Also added to the basic plan were two relatively small, low ceilinged penthouses perched at the center of each wing.

Kuhlman and Hibbs chose an architectural style that both called collegiate gothic, one that closely matched the nearby Vanderbilt Medical School and Hospital. Hibbs fought to get as many outside gothic facades as money allowed. This is still evident in the arched windows in the front and back of the center section, in the rather elaborate entrance facades on both the east and west, in the bay windows on floors two and three of the wings, and the heavy brass doors to the outside. Beautifully cut limestone formed the visible part of the first floor, and a somewhat varied red and brown brick the higher floors. The steps were of granite. The completed building, supported by a framework of structural steel and concrete, was one of the most pleasing in the architectural medley that made up the Vanderbilt campus, which lacked the architectural harmony of either Scarritt or Peabody. But the glory of the building was not outside but in the public areas within, where Kuhlman would accept no compromises on the quality or material or what was most conducive to a perfect learning environment.

Building Design

Kuhlman and his committee had to make certain assumptions about future library use in the three campus area. One key assumption was that modern universities were moving beyond textbook courses. Able professors would increasingly assign multiple readings from several books or journals, which for the most part would be available only for reading within the library. It would thus be the responsibility of libraries to provide large reference and reserve reading rooms to accommodate undergraduates. As planned, the library would have closed stacks, at least for undergraduates, but with all other areas, save the acquisitions and cataloguing departments, open to students and the public. This allowed the placement of outside doors in such a way as to control traffic flow and allow easy student access to all reading rooms, the pride of the library.

The other assumption involved graduate students, who would need carrels or segregated readings rooms to facilitate their research projects. Over half the forty-two faculty research studies, and all ninety graduate carrels (for Ph.D. candidates), were within the stacks, along with several closed typing carrels. This meant that faculty and many graduate students has access to the stack floors. Notably, the stacks were plain and functional, with concrete floors, moveable steel shelving (1217 shelves in the original plan), and plain steel carrels. The stack elevator serving all eight floors was small and unadorned. So were the adjoining stairways that connected the stacks. Each stack level had a tiny toilet (for men and women on alternating floors) that was not much larger than a broom closet, with an outside wash basin (also needed for hand washing by the student workers who either gathered or reshelved books on each floor).

Expected use patterns dictated the location of all the public areas. Because of the central stack floors, the front entrance was a bit of a problem. This was where everyone but Vanderbilt students would likely enter the library, and this included all the citizens of Nashville who had a stake in the project because of their contributions. The solution was an imposing front facade and doors, leading into a low hallway (really a tunnel) between a divided stack level two. It was well lighted and adorned with display cases as one moved to the main central hallways. To the right and left were well-designed and comfortable lavatories, and in the center two sets of stairs up to the main lobby on the second floor. The hallway to the right led Peabody and Scarritt students to the long reserve reading room in the north wing. To the left in the south wing was a small religious reading room (60 seats), which was as close as possible to both the School of Religion (in the old YMCA building across 21st Avenue), and Scarritt (a block east on 19th Avenue). At the east end of this south wing was a bibliographical lab, with numerous reference works, intended primarily for the use of the Peabody Library School.

This lab helped justify another outside door, one added late in the construction (it is not on Hibbs' original blueprints). It was at the extreme east of this south wing, and at the ground floor level (the level of stack floor one). It led into a small hallway, which opened to a stairway leading down to the cavernous basement that held all the utilities. It also led to a stairway and a small elevator, both comparable to those in the stacks. They extended all the way up to the third (or today sixth) floor, and are now used primarily by staff, but the planning committee believed they would offer convenient access for Peabody Library School students who would take many of their courses in the bibliographical lab, one story above this Peabody oriented entrance.

Library Features

The reserve reading room was one of the most carefully planned and idealistic features of the new library. The 165 oak chairs, like these in all reading rooms, were specially designed to foster good posture (most of these are still in use but not so the heavy, long tables).

The main entrance to the library from the west faced the Vanderbilt campus. It led up short stairs to the second floor lobby, which was the functional core of the library. Here was the main circulation desk and, in beautiful cabinets, the card catalogues (JUL Central, a Union catalogue of all Nashville area libraries including other branches of JUL, and, for reference purposes, recent acquisition cards for the Library of Congress). Fortunately, foundation grants over several years had enabled the completion of all these cards before the library opened. Facing the main lobby, to the north, was a lovely browsing library. To the south was the main JUL office and secretarial suite, or the domain of Kuhlman. It contained a small toilet.

Anyone checking out books had to present a filled out request form to the circulation desk and then wait for the books. To assist student workers in procuring requested books, the library installed a state of the art book conveyor, with carriers at eight-foot intervals on a revolving chain that moved at six feet a second. This conveyor carried books to any stack floor designated by a push button and automatically discharged them into recovery boxes. As one of many examples of the attention to small details, the large receiving box at the circulation desk had a spring supported bottom, such that the last books received were always on top (no reaching down into the bin). Beside the conveyor were vacuum tubes that delivered book requests to any designated stack floor except five (why five was missing remains a mystery). At the time, all this seemed a perfect arrangement for a closed stack library.

The south wing of the second floor was a working area for staff. Access for books and supplies was at the west end of this wing, with a door and stairs leading to the termination of a street that came in from Garland Avenue. It had a turning space for trucks, in what amounted to a very small and soon inadequate shipping and receiving area. Since these staff offices were closed to the public, they had plain concrete ceilings and no expensive paneling, but the total library staff did have a lounge with a small kitchen on the third floor, next to a large women's rest room. The placement of toilets revealed one working assumption-almost all professors would be male, almost all the library staff female.

The whole north wing of this second floor contained the reference reading room. This, along with the reserve room beneath it, was expected to have the heaviest undergraduate use. Students entering from the east could access it through the main lobby, or by a stairway at the northwest of the central section. This stairwell led up from the first floor all the way to one of four corner towers (a structural precursor for the planned future expansion), and to two faculty studies on this firth story (today the ninth floor). It was assumed that most Vanderbilt students would use this stairway, and the outside door to it, to access either the reserve room (down) or reference room and lobby (up), thus limiting the traffic elsewhere. A comparable stairway and tower to the south had less use, but led down to the religion library and on to the basement, and up to the lobby or staff area and floors four and five. The southwest tower had only one faculty study (where I am writing this essay) because of the space devoted to the small but ornate passenger elevator, the only one of three elevators open for public use. The planning committee had debated its necessity, but decided that older faculty with fourth floor research studies might need it. It was much too small for regular student use, and well away from the main circulation routes of students. The two towers on the east did not include main stairwells, but as originally planned each would have had two rather spacious faculty studies accessed by a small stairway from the eighth stack floor. These were completed as planned for the southeast tower, but because the air conditioning architect commandeered the northeast tower for the original cooling system, it is now only an empty shell, one of the anomalies of the present building.

The third floor (and upper floor for most of each wing) was primarily reserved for graduate students, although about two thirds of the south wing contained a science and technology reading room (today the periodical reading room). This reading room was expected to appeal largely to engineering students. The whole north wing was reserved for graduate students, primarily M.A. candidates. It was their special reading room, and a matter of great pride for the designers of JUL Central. It had 150 assigned desks. Like all the tables in all three north wing rooms, these had sloping table tops, for easier reading, and inlaid Masonite over most of the surface to cut down on any glare and to help hold books and papers in place. Uniquely, the graduate reading room had a row of shelves at the top center of the tables. Each graduate student had an assigned shelf, with its own number, and could check out books to the shelf until the end of the academic year (if someone else requested the book, the library staff would simply procure it from the shelf and leave a notice for the graduate student). The shelves around this reading room contained bound copies of most scholarly journals. Four of a total of five research seminar rooms were on this floor, the first such on either campus. One was along the hallway just outside the graduate reading room, and three more on the west end of the south wing. These had blackboards and large, long tables that seated up to 18 students. In the next several years, almost all graduate seminars at Vanderbilt took place in these library rooms. As planned, the third floor was a social space visited regularly by almost all Vanderbilt graduate students, but probably not as often by Peabody students.

All reading rooms received special attention. They, along with the air conditioning, were the glory of JUL Central. First of all, they were beautiful. Slightly curved, plastered beams made for an arched top. Between the beams was a sound-proof acoustical ceiling, and suspended from it banks of florescent lights. Surrounding each of the reading rooms were banks of shelves or cabinets, with special paneling elsewhere on the walls. Large windows (20 percent of the wall space) provided good natural lighting. All paneling, shelves, cabinets, internal doors, and window and door frames in all public areas throughout the whole library were fashioned either from quarter sawed sweetgum or, where appropriate, sweetgum veneer. I doubt that any building in the South contained as much prime sweetgum (lequidambar styracielua), an infrequently used wood that is remarkable for its light brown to slightly reddish color and its satiny luster, as well as for its seed balls and the brilliant scarlet and orange color of it star-shaped leaves in the autumn. This light colored wood, which required no finish except wax, was perfect for the reading rooms. Black walnut would have been more expensive but too dark, although chosen for a few desks in library offices. Almost all the original wood work is still in place. It has worn well, but the sheer extent of sweetgum can seem monotonous. To cut down on noise, both the reserve and reference reading rooms had special and expensive rubber tile, with asphalt tile in all other public areas.

Unlike the first three floors, the fourth floor lacked the high, sixteen feet ceilings. It was only the first of a planned seven stack floors that would eventually tower above the wings. A series of eight faculty research studies (the most coveted because of the windows that faced the lawn to the west) lined the hallway that connected the two west stairways and towers. As one would expect, it included only a male restroom. Since it was difficult to find space for all the functions expected of a central library, the planners toward the end of the process decided to add two penthouses at the center of each wing. The one to the south became the beautiful Treasure Room, with even more luxurious cabinets and shelves than the reading rooms. It would house rare books, documents, and artifacts, and be open to the public only on special occasions. To the north was the microphotography lab. This required the most recent technology, in the form of microfilm cameras, readers, and one printer, plus an expensive dark room with drying closets, processing tanks, and enlarging tables, with elaborate plumbing (this is still in place). At the time, it was as up to date as possible in a rapidly evolving aspect of library work, and allowed the library to begin microfilming such bulky items as newspaper files..

With one all-important exception — air conditioning — these were the features that fulfilled Kuhlman's dream and made JUL Central a very special library. Some library supporters wanted extra features. The planning committee considered both an auditorium and a book store, but rejected both as extraneous to the purposes of a library. At the time of completion the library more than met space needs. In fact, the early stacks were only about half full. The planners expected the building to suffice for about 20 years, when the proposed six new stack floors could double its capacity to about one million books. The estimate proved accurate, leading not to the upward expansion (still contemplated as late as 1964), but to the esthetically disastrous addition completed at the front in 1967. Yet, even in the mid-sixties expansibility was still important, with the new graduate wing constructed so as to be able to support the other six, long-deferred stack floors.

The library has worn extremely well, although many functions and needs have changed since 1941. Unfortunately, the later switch to open but secure stacks made most outside doors redundant, wrecked the carefully planned traffic patterns, and pulled the mass of undergraduates into the Spartan and unappealing stacks. Yet, it would be difficult to find many 66-year-old buildings that have remained so little changed over the years. Given the time, and the perceived needs in 1941, is difficult to find any critical feature that Kuhlman and his committee overlooked in those dark years that connected a terrible depression to the most horrible of all wars.

Part II | Top of Page

B&W photos courtesy Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives.
Color photo by Neil Brake.

Last updated June 6, 2005

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