The Richard G. Folsom Library ("Folsom Library") is a research library in the Rensselaer Libraries system constructed in the Brutalist style located on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. It is named after Richard Gilman Folsom, the President of the Institute from 1958–1971. The Folsom Library offers a variety of services to students and patrons of the library. In addition to loans, these services include class reserves, general writing and presentation assistance through the Center for Communication Practices, cultural and educational events, inter-library loans through ConnectNY, individual and group room reservations, computer labs, and wireless internet.
The library has integrated many electronic resources into its offerings, such as research databases and digital music libraries. The library is also one of 1250 federal depository libraries in the United States, and maintains an up-to-date archive of thousands of federal documents open to the public. Over 458,260,999 resources are available online or in the Folsom Library to faculty, staff, and researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute including over seven million books and eight million trade publications.
History
The One Room Collection The origins of the modern Folsom Library can be traced to the founding of the school in 1824. It was created in line with the Constitution and Laws of Rensselaer, which stated that the school would have "a very ample scientific library to which members of the institution will have free access".History of the Rensselaer Libraries, in Folsom Library History folder, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Folsom Library, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY At that time, the Rensselaer School occupied The Old Bank Place in Troy, and it is likely that the original library was only a single room or small part of a room.Libraries at Rensselaer: A Timeline, in Folsom Library History folder, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Folsom Library, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY The earliest librarian was a student named Albert Danker from the first graduating class, and the collection consisted of a sparse number of scientific works.
For a short period of time, the library belonged to Amos Eaton, a local scientist and educator. He obtained rights to the Old Bank Place after the Rensselaer School changed its name to the Rensselaer Institute, and moved to the nearby Van Der Heyden Mansion. The school moved back to the Old Bank Place in the same year, and upon Eaton's death in 1842, regained ownership of the collection. The library stayed under the ownership of Rensselaer when the institute was forced to move (due to estate ownership complications) to the Infant School, a small brick building in downtown Troy.
The Great Fire
In 1862, sparks from a passing locomotive on the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad bridge caused a massive fire that wiped out a large portion of Troy and the majority of Rensselaer's property.Young, William. “Troy's One Hundred Years 1789-1889 Troy Irish Genealogy Society. 31 Oct 2006. Relocation and reconstruction began on 8th Street in Troy, and in 1864, the library of 396 volumes moved into the Main Building, where it would stay for another 30 years. During that time, an 80-page catalog of the library's collection entitled "Catalogue of the Library of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y." was published, and it listed over 1000 titles spanning various technical areas. From 1893 to 1927, the library moved several times, finding home in the Alumni House on 2nd Street and later moving to the Pittsburgh Building and Amos Eaton Hall.
Student Use
Despite its growing collection, in its early years, the library was rarely used by students. During the years of 1912 and 1913, when the library was located in the Pittsburgh Building, there was considerably low utilization of the collection, with many students only visiting the building in their Senior year to prepare for their graduation theses. This was also partly due to the limited scope of the collection, which by Rensselaer's technical nature, consisted primarily of technical journals and other periodicals."The Library." The Polytechnic Feb. 1920
Student use increased during the period of 1912 to 1927 as the curriculum of the institute expanded and more volumes were added to the collection to supplement professors' instruction. It was also during this period of time that the library moved from the Pittsburgh Building to the more spacious Amos Eaton building. The Amos Eaton building offered sufficient space for a little over 30 years, until a growing number of publications written after World War II forced the collection to move again to the recently purchased St. Joseph Convent chapel.
A Dedicated Library
The library's continued growth forced the institute to take into consideration creating a dedicated building for holding its collection. Up until 1950, the collection had been largely technical, but expansion of the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as increased research created an intense demand on the library. The library had constantly been moved from building to building up until this point, never having had an actual home dedicated strictly for library usage. To evaluate the possibility of a new location, a Library Advisory Committee was formed. The committee first published their discovery of numerous deficiencies in the current library in June 1962 in a report called "Future of the RPI Library Collection". The New York State Education Department also noted deficiencies of the library during their evaluation of the graduate program.Development of the Rensselaer Library, pp. 2,3,5,9,14,15 in Greene Report folder, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Folsom Library, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
The Greene Report
On June 20, 1967, the Library Advisory Committee published a report known as the "Greene Report", which detailed the purpose and requirements of a new library for the institute as well as previous research done about the library's efficacy. The report stated that "The Library is the information center of the university, providing resources to the scholars who are making, doing, and thinking things". It went on to detail the primary functions of the library to be education and research, and emphasized that the library must contain a strong collection in periodical literature, go beyond books (towards audio visual collections), strengthen peripheral material availability, and centralize all of the institutes's collections. The report also listed a number of other improvements, including:
Renovation of physical space Conversion from the Dewey Decimal System to the Library of Congress System The hiring of more professional staff Improved services for library users 300% increase in funding for acquisitions Creation of a program for binding of periodicals Creation of a program for development of computer control and automation of the collection A 50,000 monograph minimum Improvements in the graduate level collection A 100,000 minimum of Language and Literature books An acquisition rate of at least 10,000 per year
At the time, it was also clear that Rensselaer was lacking in its collection when compared to its peers. In 1967, James E. Skipper, a researcher for the Association of Research Libraries, compiled a table illustrating the collections of various universities in New York.
+Comparative Table of Library Monographic Holdings in the Indicated Subjects Among the Named Academic Institutions, 1967Skipper, James E. Association of Research Libraries (1967): Appendix E.SubjectCornell UniversityBrooklyn Polytechnic InstituteSyracuse UniversityRensselaer Polytechnic Institute Mathematics 13993 8050 18790 2889 Physics 14416 4600 15030 3315 Chemistry 9719 2600 4554 2946 Engineering 29453 4850 15533 4590 Technology 30883 2775 45098 5661
Controversy over construction
The Greene Report made it clear that there was a need for a new library on campus, and the next phase of the process began, where the location of the library would be decided. The institute hired Quinlivan Pierik & Krause, an architecture firm centered in Syracuse, to evaluate the campus and determine a possible location for the new library. The firm recommended a location on the west side of campus, adjacent to the library's current location in the St. Joseph Convent chapel.
On October 23, 1970, the firm requested a meeting with the president at the time, Richard Folsom, to discuss the possibility of a staged construction procedure where the facility would be built in iterations. Each iteration would have an increasing amount of space. The initial iteration, with the existing chapel space, would offer a total collection storage space of . Projections by the architect indicated that a total of would be available in 1985, followed by in 2010. The firm believed that this method of construction would allow expansion at a rate that the institute budget could accommodate."Plans for New Library Questioned." RPI This Week 9 Nov. 1970
President Folsom presented the idea of a phased construction to the Library Advisory Committee, who supported the idea but criticized it for its continued use of the chapel as well as placing the campus in a constant state of construction. The committee also suggested considering one of the earlier potential locations, close to the bleachers located on the '86 Field, an athletic field at the center of the campus. Professor Howard Litman, the chairman of the committee at the time, issued the statement "In summary, the most recent proposal for providing new facilities for the Rensselaer library is a workable but undesirable plan of development. It will, for the short term, provide desperately needed space, but in the long run yield an unexpectedly costly facility in the wrong place."
Controversy over location
Beyond the concerns over how the library would be constructed, questions still remained over where it would be built. Dissent existed among the library committee over the location, with those opposed to the western development arguing that a central location would be more convenient for students. The architecture firm, which had supported the western location for development, issued a report emphasizing the benefits of building next to the chapel. In the report, listed several factors that made the site an optimal choice, including the fact that "distant observability of a building on this site is excellent"."Library Site Near Chapel Reaffirmed." RPI This Week 30 Nov. 1970
The report convinced 10 out of the 12 members of the Library Advisory Committee to support the site recommendation. In 1971, the final decision was made to create a facility on the west side of campus. The new library would have an underground annex and a pedestrian plaza that would connect it to St. Joseph's Chapel (now the Voorhees Computing Center), and would cost approximately $6.9 million.Folsom Library Archives Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 31 Oct. 2006
With the constant delay in construction, many students had adopted an attitude of disdain towards the library. As one student quoted in a report on the library, "There existed an attitude of the Library being a very second class function on campus, expected to make do with inadequate housing and financial support and generally held in low self esteem."Wait, Carol. "The Response of the RPI Library to its environment." Lib 601 Libraries as Organizations 15 Mar. 1970
Construction begins