"Geisel Library, UC San Diego’s ‘mother ship,’ turns 50" - San Diego, CA - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

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BY GARY ROBBINS SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
SEPT. 20, 2020 8:03 AM PT
A vending machine stocked with books? In the lobby of a library? On a campus teeming with STEM students hooked on smartphones?

It seems like the last thing you’d find at UC San Diego’s Geisel Library, whose futuristic facade inspired a key scene in the science-fiction movie “Inception.”

But the grab-and-go dispenser will soon be in place — one of many efforts large and small to serve the growing masses and keep things moving on a campus that’s become much bigger than anyone imagined.

The question is, when will students get to use it? Or even be allowed to roam the stacks of a library that resembles an inverted pyramid rising out of a canyon?

As it prepares to turn 50 on Tuesday, Sept. 29, the La Jolla landmark is closed to foot traffic due to the coronavirus pandemic.

And it’s unclear when it will fully reopen, even though thousands of students are about to arrive for the fall quarter.

There will be virtual celebrations. But students are likely to want more. They joke that UCSD’s initials stand for University of California Socially Dead. But that doesn’t apply to Geisel, the busy and buzzy center of campus.

Geisel attracts thousands of students who want to be in the “mother ship,” the name they’ve given the otherworldly structure.

They mash together chairs in a second-floor reading room, creating a communal experience that is missing from many areas of the campus, which has nearly 40,000 students.

Students scan phone apps to check on available seating. Many show up early, hoping to find a spot near windows that offer prime views of La Jolla and beyond.

Like Hoover Tower at Stanford, Geisel’s appearance is so striking that it is used in virtually all of UCSD’s advertising, a symbol of how San Diego County became a mecca of science, technology and medicine in the early days of the Space Age.

“It seems like every kid who graduates from UC San Diego takes a picture in front of this building,” said Erik Mitchell, UCSD’s head librarian. “I’m sure they do that because it’s iconic. But I think they also have had a moving experience. There’s a reason they’re coming to this school rather than going somewhere else.”

UC San Diego’s Geisel Library is named after Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. (File)

The library also benefits from being named after the late Theodor Geisel, the La Jolla author-illustrator known to most as Dr. Seuss.

His writings and drawings are housed at Geisel — something tour guides mention when they lead prospective students through the library.

The only thing Geisel has been missing throughout its history is the general public.

UCSD’s walled-off design can make it hard for visitors to find the library. Parking is scarce. And as Chancellor Pradeep Khosla has noted, the school hasn’t done a good job of welcoming the public to campus.

That’s about to change.

UCSD is building its first “front door,” an entrance meant to make it easy to reach the center of the university. It’s being built at the foot of the Pepper Canyon Blue Line trolley station that will empty onto a grand plaza, guiding people to Geisel and other sites.

1957: By the late 1950s it was obvious that the University of California system would need more campuses. The state’s population was soaring. And the Cold War had increased the demand for engineers and scientists, especially in San Diego County’s huge military and defense industries.

Prominent architect William Pereira was hired to find suitable sites. He came up with 19 possibilities, including a spot in north La Jolla that was later chosen by UC regents. It had ample room for a major library.

1960: UCSD was formally established and quickly enrolled graduate students in physics, emphasizing the school’s focus on science.

1963: Planners originally wanted UCSD to be composed of science institutes that included some graduate students. But the need to also serve undergraduates was apparent, leading to the creation of humanities programs that heavily rely on old printed book collections.

1964: Historian John Galbraith agreed to become UCSD’s second chancellor after being assured there would be enough money to create a major library. He said the library would help ensure that UCSD wasn’t a mere satellite of UCLA.

1965: UC again turned to Pereira for help, hiring him to design a building that would be known as Central Library. Pereira, a sci-fi fan, had become famous for bold, futuristic designs, including a building at Los Angeles International Airport that resembles a space ship with legs. Regents wanted something equally iconic for UCSD.

1967: Pereira began designing a library that would reflect Brutalist architecture, a style featuring big, heavy structures often made of concrete. Examples include the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, D.C. Workers broke ground on Central Library the following year.

1970: Central Library opened and soon had 750,000 volumes. Most of the collection was print. But Galbraith foresaw a digital age that would transform society, and change was occurring. MIT introduced email a short time later, and Canon introduced its pocket calculator.

1973: The library added its 1 millionth volume, John Ogilby’s “America,” a rare account of early discoveries and expeditions to America.

1978: Theodor Geisel delivered the UCSD commencement speech, speaking entirely in verse.

1985: UCSD celebrated the 15th anniversary of Central Library.

1990: Construction began on an expansion that added 200,000 square feet to the library, doubling usable space for patrons, staff and book storage.

1991: Geisel died at age 87 after living in La Jolla for more than 40 years. He and his wife, Audrey, had become big fans of UCSD, especially the library. “The first time Ted saw the form of that building, he said to me, ‘If I had turned my thoughts toward designing a building, it might have looked strangely similar to this,’” Audrey Geisel later told the Los Angeles Times.

The following year, she donated nearly 10,000 of her husband’s original drawings, sketches, notebooks and memorabilia to the library.

1992: The library celebrated the addition of its 2 millionth volume, a 1493 printing of the Nuremberg Chronicle, a hand-colored history of the world from its creation to 1492.

1995: The library was renamed Geisel Library after Audrey Geisel donated $20 million to the university. The change was meant to honor both Audrey and Ted. She continued to donate original works and memorabilia to UCSD, eventually pushing the number of items to more than 20,000. Also in 1995, UCSD opened Library Walk,a pedestrian path that better connects the library to other parts of the campus.

1999: Brian E.C. Schottlaenderwas appointed head librarian. A short time later, he began to provide access to electronic journals, making it faster and easier for faculty, especially in science, engineering and medicine, to see the latest research. E-journals didn’t catch on as fast with humanities faculty, who tend to like older, historic tests. Today, faculty can access hundreds of thousands of journals.

2004: The library celebrated the acquisition of its 3 millionth volume.

2006: San Diego author Vernor Vinge released “Rainbows End,” a sci-fi novel that prominently features Geisel Library. The plot raised the possibility that all of the library’s physical books would cease to exist.

2008: UCSD began shipping books to Google as part of a massive digitization project. More than 600,000 have been digitized.

Sources: UC San Diego, University of California, Los Angeles Times, William L. Pereira & Associates

GEISEL’S MANDEVILLE SPECIAL COLLECTIONS include the personal archives of Jonas Salk, who developed the first effective vaccine against polio; Nobel laureate Francis Crick, who co-discovered the structure of DNA; Nobel laureate Harold Urey, who co-discovered deuterium and helped develop the atom bomb; Nobel laureate Maria Goeppert Mayer, who proposed the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus; biologist Walter Munk, the “Einstein of the oceans”; political activist Herman Baca, co-founder of the Committee on Chicano Rights; and poet Rae Armantrout, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Taken from Wikipedia, "Geisel Library is the main library building of the University of California, San Diego. It is named in honor of Audrey and Theodor Seuss Geisel. Theodor is better known as children's author Dr. Seuss. The building's distinctive architecture, described as occupying "a fascinating nexus between brutalism and futurism", has resulted in its being featured in the UC San Diego logo and becoming the most recognizable building on campus.

The library was designed by William Pereira and opened in 1970 as the Central Library. It was renovated in 1993 and rededicated as the University Library Building, and renamed Geisel Library in 1995. The UC San Diego Library consists of Geisel Library and the Biomedical Library Building, with off-campus locations at Scripps Archives and Library Annex, the Trade Street Storage Annex, and the UC Southern Regional Library Facility.

Geisel Library is located in the center of the UC San Diego campus. It houses over 7 million volumes to support the educational and research objectives of the university. It also contains the Mandeville Special Collections and Archives, which houses the Dr. Seuss Collection, which contains original drawings, sketches, proofs, notebooks, manuscript drafts, books, audio and videotapes, photographs, and memorabilia. The approximately 8,500 items in the collection document the full range of Dr. Seuss's creative achievements, beginning in 1919 with his high school activities and ending with his death in 1991. The head of the library system is designated the Audrey Geisel University Librarian, currently Erik T. Mitchell."

Type of publication: Internet Only When was the article reported?: 09/20/2020 Publication: La Jolla Light Article Url: [Web Link] Is Registration Required?: no How widespread was the article reported?: local News Category: Business/Finance

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