A planned $10 million renovation project will convert Webster Hall into a library and study space and provide more room for the College's overflowing libraries.
Baker Library's Special Collections will move into Webster Hall, which will contain four or five floors of stacks inside a "glass enclosed peninsula" surrounded by desks and chairs for students, Facilities Planning Director Gordon DeWitt said.
The project will begin as soon as the College raises the money, DeWitt said. He estimated that construction will begin this summer at the earliest and take 14 to 18 months to complete.
The College has already secured between $3 million and $5 million for the project as part of the Will to Excel Capital Campaign, said Bill Kissik, Senior Associate Director of Major Gifts.
"It's one of the top two or three building priorities," Kissik said. The $5.1 million Sudikoff Laboratory for the mathematics and computer sciences departments is another priority, he said.
The renovations to the Collis Center cost $5.5 million.
Webster now contains a large common space on the first floor and faculty offices in the basement. In the past it has been used to accommodate performances, speeches and dances that will now take place in the Collis Center.
The Webster renovations will provide much-needed space for Special Collections, which has been forced to store books on desks and under tables, Special Collections Librarian Philip Cronenwett said.
More than 90,000 volumes, 6.5 million manuscripts and 400,000 photographs will be moved from Special Collections' current location in Baker to Webster's climate-controlled stacks, Cronenwett said.
Webster's upper balconies will be converted into a student study space similar to the Tower Room in Baker Library, Cronenwett said. Renovators, however, must first level the slanted floor.
An underground structure will be built to connect the southeast corner of Baker to the northwest end of Webster but the passage will not be for public use, Administrative Services Librarian John Crane said.
Instead, Special Collections' librarians will use the space to perform restoration work on old or damaged materials, he said.
