A Library Without Books: Remodeling Hayden for Students of the Future

By Kelly deVos

On the far side of the fifth floor of Hayden Library, behind a nondescript breakroom door lies the office of the late, great, Carl Hayden, perfectly preserved in all in its 1960’s-era glory. Going inside is like traveling through time. The room has mid-century modern furniture, the senator’s old red leather chair and even a birthday card signed by President Lyndon Johnson. It’s not really much of a surprise that Senator Hayden had an office in the library. He was an ASU graduate in the early days of the university, back when it was still called Tempe Normal School, and the building is named after his father, Tempe founder Trumbull Hayden.

What’s surprising is that, 44 years after Hayden’s death, his office is being kept in a condition that suggests he might walk through the door at any moment. The space is also largely off-limits to students and faculty. For some people, this is a metaphor for the library itself. It’s a grand old building chocked full of out-of-date stacks and oddball oddities of little use to the student population.

ASU plans to begin extensive renovations of the 1966, Pavilion-style structure in 2017. Led by university librarian James J. O’Donnell, a polarizing pioneer of digital technology, some of the plans, like connecting the Memorial Union to Hayden, are innocuous and have clear benefits.

But O’Donnell also intends to get rid of the library’s books.

More specifically, he intends to transfer most of Hayden Library’s physical books to Mesa’s Polytechnic campus. Students who want access to hard copy books can make requests via a delivery system that will transfer them to any one of ASU’s libraries for pick up. Technically, the books will be available, but it’s clear that O’Donnell’s library of the future is a digital one, where most access will be via computer. The vision of Hayden he expressed to the State Press last November is something out of a futuristic film with oversized video screens, large format printers, and floor after floor of research space.

This will be the library of the future for students of the future. But will they thank O’Donnell for it?

Unlike e-books, which have become prominent largely during the past decade, printed volumes have been the mainstay of university libraries since the 15^th century invention of the printing press. There have been few studies that establish what the transition to digital books means for higher education. It’s also unclear whether or not young people actually like e-books. A 2014 study by The Guardian found that a majority of tweens and teens preferred print books. It’s anybody’s guess whether these kids will arrive at Arizona State and be pleased to find a library that looks like an Apple Store.

For a variety of reasons, the pressure is on for universities to globalize and digitize. But this is still Arizona State University, built and funded in large measure by the citizens of this state over the school’s 100-plus year tenure. At least some part of the mandate of Hayden Library must be to preserve the legacy of Arizona and to acknowledge its history. This mission is especially critical when you consider the small percentage of state natives relative to the overall population. In that context, Carl Hayden’s office on the fifth floor seems important and maybe a bit apropos. This is, after all, a man whose Central Arizona Project made possible the transformation of Phoenix from a small town into the nation’s fifth largest city. Yet, out on Orange or Cady Malls, few students know about the senator or his accomplishments.

This feels like the biggest limitation of a predominantly digital library – people don’t know what they don’t know. During my time as a student, I’ve passed a number of exhibits curated by the librarians of Hayden, including one called “Weird and Wonderful Government Documents,” and have come across some very strange books, like one titled Explaining the Obious. I doubt I would have sought any of this material out had I not found it in passing. Effectively simulating this process of learning through interaction with elements of the physical world has proved elusive for digital designers. And what if, ultimately, it just won’t work for the same reason that seeing a photograph of Picasso’s Guernica isn’t the same as seeing Guernica?

There’s no denying that the stacks at Hayden are sometimes deserted. But I find myself wondering about the real root of this issue. Has the library become irrelevant? Or has the university failed to present its importance to students? To me, impressing upon current and future students why libraries have been places of incredible social, cultural and scholastic significance for hundreds of years is more likely to pay off in the long run than digitizing and warehousing books. Furthermore, I worry that, in a zeal to modernize, everything special about Hayden, everything that makes it a unique place in a unique time, will be replaced by the type of material that is available everywhere else.

I hope Hayden keeps the stacks. But what do you think? What’s your library of the future?