Sterling Memorial Library

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Sterling Memorial Library

Sterling Memorial Library is the largest library at Yale University, containing over 4 million volumes. It is an example of Gothic revival architecture, designed by James Gamble Rogers, adorned with thousands of panes of stained glass created by G. Owen Bonawit.

The Library has 15 levels, each with its own category of books. In 1971, the adjoining underground Cross Campus Library, renamed the Bass Library in 2007, was built. It connects to Sterling via an underground tunnel. Bass Library currently contains an additional 150,000 volumes.

[edit] History

Although the original architect, Bertram Goodhue, originally intended Sterling to be taller and resemble the State Capitol Building in Lincoln, Nebraska, plans changed under the new architect James Gamble Rogers.

Sterling Memorial Library tower with the Selin courtyard at the bottom at the time of its construction

The Nave empty at the time of construction with the circulation desk in the background

Rogers created the library in the image of a Gothic Cathedral, even going so far as to model the circulation desk after an altar. He even required that the library be seen from the street. As a result, Berkeley College was divided into two sections in order to create an unobstructed view of the cathedral-like library. It was designed as a memorial to John William Sterling (Yale 1864), name partner in the New York law firm Shearman & Sterling, who donated around US$29 million to Yale upon his death. Sterling Memorial Library, which Rogers remarked was "as near to modern Gothic as we dared to make it," is made up of fifteen stack levels and eight floors of reading rooms, offices, and work areas. Work on the library was completed in 1931.

The amount of stone transported for the construction exceeded the amount used, and as a result, myths and legends abound on the Yale campus regarding fanciful structures claimed to exist on the roof, built of surplussed stone and metal. One story has a small castle hiding the air-conditioning system. Another claims that there exists an entire miniature city up there, complete with its own stone golf course. In reality much of the fanciful design that exists on the roof was present in the original design.

[edit] Architectural Details

Architectural details

Ornamented ceilings in the nave

The library is one of the most elaborate buildings on the Yale campus. The main entrance is adorned with symbols and writings in various ancient languages. The Nave is decorated with marble reliefs depicting Yale's founding and the history of New Haven and Connecticut. A giant fresco of Alma Mater surrounded by figures representing academic schools greets scholars over the circulation desk. Bosses on the ceiling of Nave represent writing implements. Even the doors of the elevators are handwrought iron, depicting Medicine, Law, Shipping, Manufacturing, Agriculture, Chemistry, Husbandry, and Machine Work. The most famous detail about the construction of the library, however, is its windows. In total, there are some 3,300 hand-decorated windows in the library. They depict everything from fiction to history and even small insects on otherwise unadorned panes created to look real. In 2000, one former librarian published a book about the windows.

In 1997 the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library was constructed in one of Sterling's unused courtyards. It houses one of the largest collections of recordings and scores in the United States.

The nave	Ornamented ceilings	Library counter	Card Catalog
Card Catalog	Details above entrace	Entrance to library	Reliefs above entrance
Writings above entrance	Sculpture of Greek	Sculpture of Roman	Sculpture of Worker
Sculpture of student	Wisdom and Death	Stained glass panels	Stained glass panels
Stained glass	Painted glass	Stained glass	Stained glass
Stained glass	Stained glass	Stained glass	Stained glass
Stained glass

[edit] Reading Rooms and Collections

Starr Reading Room for reference materials

Irving S. Gilmore Music Library entrance

Irving S. Gilmore Music Library main staircase

[edit] References

• Yale University Library
• Sterling Memorial Library History
• Nota Bene--News from the Yale Library on the stained glass
• More SML history
• Walker, Gay. Bonawit, Stained Glass, and Yale: G. Owen Bonawit's Work at Yale University & Elsewhere, Wildwood Press, 2002.
• Walker, Gay. Stained Glass in Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library: A Guide to the Decorative Glass of G. Owen Bonawit, Wildwood Press, 2006.