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Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, Groupe des Cartot
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© LIBER and author
Published from: LIBER Quarterly, the journal of European research
libraries, ISSN 1435-5205, Vol. 8(1998), No 2. With permission from K.G. Sa
ur Verlag, Munich, Germany
E-mail: Hans-Peter Höhener
Abstract
First something about the library, then a description of the different stages of the construction of the new library, the part the map department played in it, and the problems that then arose. Some problems are certainly of a local nature, but others may well be the same for all map departments that find themselves in a similar situation.
Some facts about the library and its map department
The Zürich Central Library (Zentralbibliothek Zürich) has the multiple function of a university library and a library for the Canton and City of Zürich. Its status is a foundation, to which the canton pays four fifths and the city one fifth of the costs. The city has a population of about 350,000 inhabitants and the Canton of about 1.2 million.
The library holds almost 3.7 million units. For 1995 the total budget was about 25 million francs, of which some 6 million were for new acquisitions and binding. The Central Library has one of the largest humanities collections in Switzerland.
History of the library
The former City Library (Stadtbibliothek) was founded in 1629 and situated from 1631 onwards in the 'Water Church' (Wasserkirche) on the banks of the river Limmat. The cantonal library (Kantonsbibliothek), which also functioned as the University library, was founded in 1835. It was housed in the Predigerchor, the choir of the former Dominican monastery of Zürich. In 1914 these two libraries were combined, together with special libraries for law, medicine and the sciences, under the name 'Central Library' (Zentralbibliothek). Between 1915 and 1917 a new building was constructed on the site of the former Dominican monastery, which in 1887 had burned down partially. The new building was planned to last for 50 years, i.e. until the mid-sixties.
The map department
The map department of the Zentralbibliothek was founded in 1897 when the city library received the collection of the 'Kartenverein', a society of private individuals who collected maps.
The map department holds 184,000 maps from all over the world, dating from over five centuries. Moreover, it contains more than 2,000 atlases and over 3,000 panoramas. The reference library contains about 3,000 books concerning cartographic literature. The map department of the Zentralbibliothek and the map department of the Swiss Technical University are by far the biggest map collections in Switzerland.
Staff
There are two full-time staff. Two further members of staff work one day a week. The head of the department is also in charge of geographical literature within the Central Library.
Acquisition policy
The map department collects topographical maps from all over the world in the scale 1:50,000 and above. The neighbouring countries of Switzerland are available in a scale of 1:25,000. The map department restrains itself in the acquisition of thematic maps because this is a particular speciality of the Map Department of the Swiss Technical University. Our budget for maps amounts at the moment to 47,000 Swiss francs, not including atlases and cartographic literature.
Services
The map department is open from Monday to Friday from 2 to 6 o'clock and on Saturday from 2 to 5 o'clock. Visitors do not have direct access to all the maps, but might have to wait until the following day for maps to be brought up from the stacks. Maps are not lend.
The construction of the new library
Planning and construction of the extension
The planning of the extension of the present library took a long time. In 1977 an architectural competition was held. In 1979 the jury recommended that the project of the architects Alex W. and Heinz P. Eggimann from Zürich should be executed. Seven years later, in 1986, the construction credit was approved in a plebiscite with a good majority of 60 % yes in the canton and 70 % in the city. The credit amounted to 71.8 million Swiss francs, of which two thirds were borne by the canton, and one third by the city. This credit included a subvention by the Swiss Federation of about 10 million francs. It was not until 1990, four years after the plebiscite, that construction could finally begin. The administrative tract of the old building was preserved, but the reading room and the stacks were demolished and had to be built anew on the same site. This made the organization of the transitional phase very difficult. All books and lending services had to be moved into other buildings. The rare books were moved into a new, recently-built, as yet empty stack of the library of the Swiss Technical University, the rest of the books into empty arsenals near the former military barracks of Züich. The special departments were not affected yet because their building had remained intact. But some of the rarely-used maps were also housed in stacks of the library of the Swiss Technical University, and had to be transported by car when requested by a user. The delivery of the maps could be delayed up to three days.
From January 1994 onwards, the new stacks were filled and the offices of the new administrative tract occupied. From July to October 1994 the ground floor and the basement of the old building (Stammhaus) were renovated. The new library was opened on November 1, 1994. At the same time, a new computer system came into operation, which was adopted from the Library of the Technical University. Finally, the rest of the old building with the special departments was renovated, and reopened in June 1995.
The construction costs were more than 90 million Swiss francs. The available space in the library is 96,000 m³, of which 14,000 m³ are in the old building and 82,000 m³ in the extension.
Planning of the new map department
Almost since the beginning of its existence, the map department has always had too little room, and was housed for a long time in the rooms of the prints collection. A separate maproom was not created until 1971. But most of the map cases were distributed over different floors all over the staircase. Even before the beginning of the construction work, the map department had to move to the print collection again. The planning department had lost its room because of the construction of a new lift, and the old maproom was chosen as its new site. When the stacks were demolished, sheds were built in the staircase for the storage of the atlases and oversized books, in order to prevent their having to be moved long distances on a regular basis.
Before renovating the old building in which the special departments were situated, all these departments had to move to another building, the Predigerchor. The map cases were immediately moved to the newly finished stacks, as were also 30 newly-acquired map cases. The renovation of the old building took place from October 1994 until May 1995. Then the special departments moved back, and on June 16, 1995 the renovated building was officially reopened.
The new stacks go six floors down into the earth and the lowest two floors function as stacks for storing the most valuable documents pertaining to our cultural heritage. They have therefore especially strong ceilings and very restricted access.
All in all, the map department has moved three times, first in 1989 to the print collection, then in 1994 to the Predigerchor and in 1995 back to the old building, albeit into new premises.
Originally, the new map room was planned for the basement, in the rooms where the bookbindery was eventually situated. During the construction of the new library, the former reading room for periodicals in the first floor of the old building became free. These rooms were reserved for the new map department.
The surface of the planned maproom thus diminished from 210 m² to 110 m². In these figures, the galleries with their bookshelves are not included. The new maproom is better situated than the bookbindery. The proximity to the print collection is also useful, since there have long been many points of contact between the two departments. The maproom is also aesthetically more pleasing to the eye, and has a higher ceiling. One disadvantage is that the way from the maproom to the stacks leads through the picture collection.
Special problems of the map department during construction
General remarks
The commissioners were the building authority (Hochbauamt) of the city of Zürich, which did not always inform the library at the right time about its decisions, and sometimes also made decisions against our wishes. The most serious case was the ordering by the political decision-makers of bookshelves that the library did not want, and which duly collapsed several times, the first time being at the moment when they were installed.
During the whole period of construction, a working group existed (Arbeitsgruppe Bau, composed of seven members of the library staff), whose function it was to co-ordinate with the builders. This group also consulted the map department on matters that concerned it.
But the following problems inevitably arose: there is the possibility that something which is important for the map department gets left behind. It may be that your colleagues simply do not know what is important for you. Sometimes it is only by accident that you learn things that are important to you. In periods when the supervisors of the building site have too much to do, decisions are made quickly without asking other affected persons. When obtaining information, it may be the case that you are either too soon or too late, i.e. the matter is not yet advanced enough for one to make a decision, or everything has just been decided and it is now impossible to change anything.
Detailed planning
The detailed planning should be done as late as possible. Otherwise it has to be rethought from time to time, because the basic conditions at the construction site can change. You know this as so called 'rolling' planning. In our case, for instance, even the location of the map department was changed. The requirements of the map department are normally underestimated by non-experts. When these people do the calculations, you normally get too little space. We for instance had always to find new places for our maps throughout the whole library. When all the material stored in different places was brought together, the other librarians were astonished that we needed so much space.
Plans
It is necessary to look at the construction plans very closely. Perhaps the doors are too small, or in the wrong place, or you did not get tables of a sufficient size. For example, the first room which was provided for the map stacks had an entrance through which the map cases would not fit. When you draw the plans yourself, it is not certain that they will arrive at the right person. It may also happen that not your newest plans, but older ones are taken into account by mistake.
Proposals
Your proposals are often refused on the grounds that there is no money for them. You never know what to say to such general answers. You have to be prepared to be asked to save something additional during the construction. They ask you whether everything you asked for is really necessary. For example, I was asked if I really needed as many new map cases as I had ordered. Sometimes, though, some money might be left over with which one can ask for something extra. We, for example, were able to get money to restore some old cabinets.
Interior furnishing of the map room
Normally the map department has some influence on its interior furnishing. We were able to talk to the experts about the furnishings, the installation of the electricity, and the light problems, and drew up plans with our proposals. The architect had some ideas about the positioning of the tables and map cases. As far as the number of map cases was concerned, a compromise was reached. The map department wanted eight map cases, the architect only four, and finally six map cases were agreed upon for the new maproom. The architect has a better eye for the installation of a room but he does not have the experience of the map librarians as far as the needs of a map department are concerned.
Maybe you might have some influence on the purchase of new office furniture. Normally this is the same for the whole library, but you must insist that your tables have to be bigger than those in the main reading room.
It is very important that you have enough shelves for big books and atlases. It is also most advantageous if you can store them flat instead of on their sides. In our case this was only possible down in the bookstacks.
The lighting of the room is also important. When you have big windows as we do, than you have to protect your maps from sunlight. We have outside rollerblinds which always have to be pulled up when we leave the office, but we also have special curtains that keep out sunlight.
Our solution for the map room
The maproom is about 4 m high and has a gallery on two sides. The surface area is about 80 m². There are eight tables for our visitors, each measuring 150 x 100 cm. Furthermore, two tables of the same size serve as the workplace for cataloguing. The map room also has a fluorescent table of 123 x 153 cm and six map cases measuring 150 x 110 cm containing those maps that are used most frequently. The cases also serve as places to store maps. The card catalogues, cartographical literature, atlases and folded maps are stored in shelves along the walls. The original wooden bookshelves from the old periodicals reading room were adapted for our purposes, and some new shelves of massive wood were also made.
The photocopier is not inside the map room, but on another floor - which is a disadvantage. There are four PC's in the maproom, one on each of the three working tables, and a further one at the supervising desk. One terminal is there for the use of our visitors, and is due to be replaced by a PC.
The office has two workplaces and a surface of only 30 m². It also has a gallery, so that there is sufficient space for bookshelves.
The stacks of the Map Department
The need for space is sometimes difficult to estimate, especially when you change the methods of storage - such as changing from shelves to map cases. There must be sufficient distance between the cases or shelves. Valuable maps need more space than other maps. The system used by the State Archives in Berne, which we would like to adopt, needs more space. There ought to be at least one higher room for the storage of oversize materials, but this is lacking in our stacks.
Certain regulations are essential for stacks used to store valuable holdings, as for example the thickness of the ceilings. It should be forbidden to install water pipes, and you have to protect your holdings against floods. But you cannot always be sure that these regulations are strictly fulfilled. In our library, water pipes were built in a way forbidden by the regulations, and so, even during the library construction, rare books were damaged by water from a burst pipe.
Our solution for the map stacks
Most of the maps as well as all the atlases and cartographical works not held in the maproom are held in the 5th underground floor in a separate room measuring 430 m². In this room there are 59 of our total of 65 map cases. The remaining six map cases are - as mentioned before - in the map room itself.
The old atlases, the panoramas and some manuscript maps are in a special room in the sixth underground floor, which is intended only for the special departments. In this room are also compactus shelves. Thus each document on a shelf is moved when you take out another document - and this is can not be well for the document concerned. Nor is there any space left for tables. But at least the old atlases are kept horizontal, which is a great exception in our stacks, because all other big volumes are stored vertically. It is a pity that you cannot take out the most precious documents without difficulty. But this was the only room we use, in the planning of which we were not consulted.
It is also very important that you look at the plans for the lift connections between the stacks and the map room, because the architect does not always know your exact needs.
Choice of map cases
Which company should deliver the map cases? Maybe the criteria which seem most reasonable are irrelevant. You may think it best to order the same map cases you already had, if you were happy with them. When you decide to order totally new ones, you will want the most suitable. The price is certainly an important factor, but political criteria can also play an important role. Certain firms have to be taken into consideration, which might mean that a firm receiving an order is only making the product on an ad-hoc basis and has no prior experience. This will bring problems should repairs be necessary, and should one want to order more of the same product at a later date. One advantage of this case is that certain wishes can be considered when the firm builds a prototype for you. After some struggles, our map department was able to get the map cases it wanted.
Conclusion
Never think that others will think for you, because they just do not know what you need. If you do not tell them your needs or do not have the opportunity to do so, then you will not be satisfied.