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• 1 media/15425669297_33dadebf75_k.jpg media/082015_UofICampus_DSC04322-Edit.jpg 2015-10-22T20:57:11-07:00 The Ricker Library of Architecture and Art 26 A Retrospective on the Past 100 Years image_header 2016-08-30T09:48:31-07:00

  Introduction

  The foundation of the Ricker Library of Architecture and Art dates back to 1873 when Nathan Clifford Ricker was first appointed as the University's first professor of Architecture. As a student of Architectural Engineering, Ricker had to make due with the University Library's collection: an encyclopedia of architectural history and about $400 worth of other related texts. With such paltry offerings, it should come as no surprise that during his first year as an assistant professor, Ricker requested and received $500 for the purchase of books for the department. Each year thereafter, he used as much as he could of the Department's $100 equipment allowance to continue growing the collection—equivalent to only $2,000 by 2016 standards. This commitment to the Library persisted throughout Professor Ricker's forty-five year tenure at the University of Illinois, and, as a result, the collection grew from a modest selection of books in Professor Ricker's office to a collection of national renown. 
  
  From early on, the librarians tasked with stewarding the collection found novel solutions to the unique set of challenges presented by the specific needs of the University of Illinois' architecture students: in addition to books and journals, architecture students—to a greater degree than any other discipline taught so early on at the University—required access to visual materials, especially given the University's location at so great a distance from those architectural monuments which may have served as visual inspiration. 
  
  Librarians at the University of Illinois were instrumental in developing a classification scheme for visual materials, and in 1906, Ricker himself proposed an extension of the Dewey Decimal system of classification to the subjects of architecture and building. In addition to innovating classification schemes, the library continually adopted diverse technologies in order to meet its patrons' needs: from lantern slides and mounted photographs to digital repositories and online databases, the Library has continually adapted to the ever-changing landscape of scholarly publishing and collecting visual materials. Even today, the Ricker Library continues this spirit of forward-thinking and innovation, encouraging students to participate in collaborative digital humanities endeavors and offering access research tools such as databases and other forms of digital scholarship and collections.

  Early History

  The Library began as Professor Ricker's personal collection, located in his office in University Hall; students were encouraged to stop by and avail themselves of these materials at any time. In time, the collection became large enough to warrant its own small space in a drafting room in one of the towers of University Hall, located on the present site of the Illini Union. When the newly constructed Engineering Hall was opened in 1894, the Architecture Library moved into a small room on the fourth floor of the new building.
  
  Despite being built only sixteen years earlier, by 1910 the Architectural Engineering program had outgrown the existing arrangement of the fourth floor of Engineering Hall. In addition to updated studio facilities and the introduction of an exhibition hall, three rooms on the north side of the building were combined into a single space of 1,300 square feet in order to house the growing Library collection and provide adequate space for students to study. 
  

  1917

  Having once again outgrown its allotted space, the Library was remodeled again in 1916, more than doubling the size of the previous space. By the start of the fall semester of 1916, the library occupied approximately 4,100 square feet, the whole north wing of the fourth floor of Engineering Hall. At this time, the Library's holdings consisted of approximately 4,000 volumes, 50 periodicals, 10,000 lantern slides and mounted photographs, and was considered one of the best collections on architecture in the country. It was second perhaps only to Columbia's Avery Library, which was larger; however, it did not as thoroughly tailor its collection to meet the needs of architecture students.
  
  This same year, the Department of Architecture put into motion an idea first set out in 1913: to name the Library for its tireless champion, Nathan Clifford Ricker, upon the occasion of his retirement from the University. After accepting the title of emeritus professor earlier that year, the naming ceremony took place on May 23rd, 1917, officially designating the architecture library as the Ricker Library of Architecture. The program included several speakers including noted Midwestern Architect Joseph C. Llewellyn, University of Illinois alumnus and plate glass window innovator Francis J. Plym, and head librarian Winifred Fehrenkamp. University President Edmund J. James was also present to give an address and officially dedicate the Ricker Library. 
  
  President James unveiled a portrait bust of Professor Ricker, presented by professional architecture fraternity Alpha Chi Rho; a bronze tablet presented by the faculty of the Department of Architecture, and lastly, a mosaic depicting Professor Ricker, made by faculty member Professor Newton A. Wells. The portrait bust, later cast in bronze, as well as the tablet and mosaic can still be seen in the Ricker Library today. 
  

  1928

  Between 1906 and 1926, the architecture department had tripled in size, from 126 to 377 students respectively, and was ranked as one of the top architecture programs in the country. The Library, too, was considered among the best.
  
  Having outgrown the available space in Engineering Hall, plans were made to move the Department, as well as Ricker Library, into a new building dedicated to architecture and kindred subjects. Ground was broken on the south campus in September of 1926, and the cornerstone was laid on November 17th, 1926. Although Ricker had passed away in March of 1924, a photograph of Professor Ricker was included among the articles placed in a copper box inside the cornerstone.
  
  The Departments of Architecture as well as Art and Design, officially moved into the new building in February of 1928. Located on the second floor, the Ricker library shared the floor with the students' drafting rooms. By the time the new library opened its doors, the collection consisted of 8,000 bound volumes, 15,000 lantern slides, 20,000 mounted photographs and drawings, and between 50 and 60 translations of architectural books in French and German made by Professor Ricker himself. 
  

  1953

  On February 25th, 1953, the Department of Architecture commemorated the 80th anniversary of its first graduate. A convocation was held in Professor Ricker's honor, and festivities held at the University YMCA included speeches by former and current Heads of the Department and prizes presented to the winners of a architectural design problem: devising a plan for a commemorative foyer in Ricker's honor, to be incorporated into the northern extension of Ricker Library as a probable addition to current Architecture Building.
  
  While the addition was never undertaken, the Ricker Library had grown to such a size that head librarian Cerilla E. Saylor had made a direct request to the University Library for additional space in 1952; even before this, however, an article in the Daily Illini from March 1944 noted that, with World War II drawing to a close, the Architecture Building and especially the Library were experiencing excessive overcrowding. With the formation of the College of Fine and Applied Arts in 1931, the Departments of Art and Architecture had continued to grow steadily, particularly in the post-war years; 816 undergraduates and 29 graduate students were enrolled in 1953. 
  
  The Library's scope had been broadened in 1931 to service the students in Art and Design. At the same time, the library also being used extensively by students and faculty in the departments of City Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Home Economics and Occupational Therapy. The collection now consisted of approximately 26,000 books, 6,000 periodicals, 25,000 mounted and unmounted photographs, 30,000 lantern slides, and 13,000 other pieces of illustrative material such as posters, postcards, and illustrations. While the Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts, architecture faculty member, and alumnus Rexford Newcomb began petitioning the University for a new Fine Arts building as early as 1944, the pleas would go unheeded until 1960, when the new Art and Design building was finally completed.
  

  1973

  1973 was a significant year for the Department of Architecture; it marked the centennial of Nathan Clifford Ricker's graduation. To mark the occasion, the Department organized a symposium held February 22nd and 23rd, with the theme "Heritage and Horizons in Architectural Education." The symposium program involved a series of lectures, panels, exhibitions, and a banquet. Speakers included Barry Commoner, Director of the Center for Biology of Natural Systems at Washington University; Max O. Urbahn, alumnus and architect of the vertical assembly building and launch control center at Cape Kennedy; and keynote speaker Arthur Erikson, the Vancouver-based architect of Simon Fraser and Lethbridge Universities in Canada. Of the four exhibits mounted in conjunction with the symposium, two were put on by the Department of Architecture celebrating 100 years of architectural education at Illinois; the University Archives showcased primary materials relating to the life of Ricker; and the Ricker Library mounted a retrospective on the dedication of the Ricker Library in 1917. 
  
  The Departments of Art and Architecture continued to grow since the 1950s, with the 1973 enrollment numbers in both graduate and undergraduate programs totaling close to 1,800 students. Fortunately, Ricker Library had received much-needed aid in creating more space for students to use the library space. While in the late 1950s, Ricker hardly had the space for 50 students to study comfortably, after a 1961 renovation, the Library could accommodate over 100. Approximately 10,000 books and periodicals were moved to the Main Library stacks during the 1960s, and when Krannert Art Museum opened its doors in 1960, hundreds original art objects and posters were taken into their care. The slide collection—which totaled 61,000 slides in August of 1970—was given over to the Departments of Art and Architecture under the stewardship of a full-time slide curator. These changes drastically improved the overcrowding problems of mid-century. Still, the Ricker Library's collection had steadily grown to approximately 32,000 volumes, 400 serials, and 32,000 photographs.
  

  2017

  In the seventies, technology at Ricker Library amounted to a photocopier and a turnstile. The intervening decades saw the introduction of computers, printers, scanners, the internet, digital photography, electronic publishing, and online databases, and the gradual phasing out of slides, physical photograph collections, and card catalogs. While forty years ago, the Library struggled to fit its physical collection into the library space, today, digital collections have alleviated some of this pressure. This shift to the digital has presented a new set of opportunities and challenges for libraries in general, and for fine and applied arts collections in particular. Going forward, the Ricker Library is poised to face these challenges and meet these opportunities with the same spirit and vision as it has throughout the past hundred years, imparted by its founder and tireless champion, Nathan Clifford Ricker.