Pilkington Library
The Pilkington Library is the academic library at Loughborough University, situated in the West Park of the university campus, it is named after Lord Pilkington, the University's first Chancellor.
Built to an unusual design, the building occupies an unusual site in West Park area of the campus, immediately adjacent to Village Park. Being adjacent to the Elvyn Richards Combined Heat and Power plant enables otherwise wasted heat to be used to cool the library building.[1]
The Pilkington opened in 1980[2] as the main library to the then Loughborough University of Technology, it having previously been located in the Herbert Manzoni building which provided around a quarter of the capacity of the new facility[3], with the Fairburn Library, located at the far extremity of the campus adjacent to the RNIB College and Loughborough College, closing at a later date.
Architecture
The building unusually has the floor with the smallest area at the base of the structure, followed by another slightly larger, these first 2 floors being known as Level 1 and Level 2 and primarily holding book stock, Level 3 is slightly larger again and contains the entrance, accessed via a link bridge, a cafe, limited book and periodical stock, a number of administration offices and Open3 an informal study area. Level 4 contains a University academic department, the Department of Information Science. The 3 Library floors amount to 7,777 square metres (83,710 sq ft)[2]
For a Library designed and built at a time of major change to the criteria used by the then University Grants Committee the new library was not greatly affected by the Atkinson Report which set out the UGC's new expectations in terms of size, layout and flexibility. The then Librarian, Professor Tony Evans, wrote in an article in the International Association of Technological University Libraries Proceedings that Atkinson's restrictions on collection size were not a problem in an institution with a relatively small book stock and the only difficulties encountered with the UGC arose from the proposal to house the Library School on top of the library building, which were later overcome.[4]
As a result of a story published in Label Magazine (published by the students' union) as an April fools there is an ongoing urban myth that the Library building is sinking due to the weight of the books contained within the building not being taken into account at the design stage, although no such errors or movement have ever occurred. [5]
Collections
The library has some 450,000 books and 90,000 journals[2] housed primarily on its Levels 1 and 2 of the building, these are organised such that the elements of the collection particularly relevant to the University's science and technology students, 500-699 in the Dewey Decimal Classification system, are housed together on Level 1 and the remaining stock primarily arts, humanities, social science and computing are on Level 2.[5]
The library also houses a number of specialist collections, the largest being the David Laws Collection. Others include the Goodson Collection which contains items relating to Sir Walter Raleigh, the Dan Maskell Collection: papers and memorabilia of the tennis commentator, and the F W Collins Papers comprising athletics papers and the 1948 Olympic Torch Relay.[6]
David Laws Collection
The David Laws collection is named after Dr David Laws who was Cataloguing Manager in the Library from 1966 to 2004, who formed and managed the collection from items acquired by the University and its predecessors since around 1930, and for whom the collection is now named.[7] Made up of around 3000 books and journals the collection holds items considered in need of secure storage as a result of their age, value, scarcity, physical condition or other factors; it contains a wide range of materials, with the history of town and country planning, history of sport, history of science and engineering, 18th and 19th century English literature, Leicestershire history and topography along with architecture, art and design being particular strengths.[8]
References
- ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/26/energy.highereducation University to create own power | Environment | guardian.co.uk [Accessed 26 September 2008]
- ^ a b c http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/about/index.html Loughborough University Library - About Your Library [Accessed 27 September 2008]
- ^ Cantor, Leonard (1990) Loughborough University of Technology: Past and Present, Audio Visual Services, Loughborough University of Technology, p180 ISBN 0-G02761-22-6
- ^ http://webdoc.gwdg.de/ebook/aw/liber96/quin.htm After Atkinson. British University Library planning since 1976 [Accessed 27 September 2008]
- ^ a b http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/FAQ.html Loughborough University Library - FAQ [Accessed 27 September 2008]
- ^ http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/services/Archives.html Loughborough University Library - Archives [Accessed 27 September 2008]
- ^ http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/services/DavidLewisCollection.html Loughborough University Library - David Laws Collection [Accessed 27 September 2008]
- ^ http://www.cornucopia.org.uk/html/search/verb/GetRecord/6849 Cornucopia - Collection Summary - David Laws Collection [Accessed 27 September 2008]