San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
GEISEL LIBRARY TURNS 50 AS PLACE TO WONDER AND THINK
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 scifi movie “Inception.”
But the grab-and-go dispenser will soon be put in place, one of many efforts large and small to serve the growing masses and keep things moving on a campus that’s become far bigger than anyone imagined.
The question is: When will students get to use it? Or to even be allowed to roam the stacks of a library that resembles an inverted pyramid rising out of a canyon? UCSD is experiencing a bittersweet moment. As it prepares to turn 50 on Sept. 29, Geisel ranks among the top 25 public research libraries in the nation. It just finished creating a digital reconstruction of the ancient Temple of Bel in Syria, which was destroyed five
years ago.
But the La Jolla landmark — which draws aahs from architects — 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 upwards of 6,000 people, mostly students who want to be in the “mothership,” the name they’ve given to an otherwordly structure.
They mash together chairs in a second-floor reading room, creating a communal experience that is missing from many areas of a campus that 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 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.” 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 that will 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 on to a grand plaza, guiding people to Geisel and other sites.
The story of how the library was created, and the effect it has on the people who know it well, is told in the following passages and quotes.