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The Bates library has physical collections \u2014 books, periodicals, documents, audiovisual materials \u2014 plus access to digital and online titles, more than two million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it also has a collection of people who support every library service. There are around 20 librarians and professional staff, bolstered by a team of students, around 220, who staff everything from the circulation desk and IT Service Desk to the Peer Learning Commons, which occupies much of the ground floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s huge, runner-up to Pettengill Hall as Bates’ biggest academic building. With 86,608 gross square feet, it is more than five times the size of its close neighbor and Bates\u2019 prior library, Coram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet thanks to an imaginative design developed more than a half-century ago by The Architects Collaborative, led by Sally Harkness, Ladd’s bulk doesn’t dwarf Coram. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The library\u2019s famously pitched roof was the solution. It ensured that the front of the building remained in scale with Coram, while the large rear facade with its wide windows is compatible with the scale of Alumni Gym, the Gray Athletic Building, and Chase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the transfer of knowledge in Ladd library is silent, from screen to student, or from book to student. Some conversations are a bit louder, like those between seniors looking to find that last, crucial source to connect the dots in a senior thesis and one of the library\u2019s experienced research librarians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the evening, some exchanges are downright loud, whether on the main floor, where students chat and gather around tables, or on the ground floor, where they work through challenges and difficulties with peer tutors in the Peer Learning Commons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe know that students learn best when they can interact with other people, when they\u2019re in collaborative learning environments,\u201d says Pat Schoknecht, the college librarian and vice president for information and library services since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd so the library needs to be a place where they can find the resources that they need, using that word very broadly \u2014 a place where they can either work alone because that\u2019s what they want to do, or in pairs or small groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schoknecht recalls what someone once told her: \u201cThe library is the place where intentional learning should be happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that \u201clet\u2019s go!\u201d spirit, Schoknecht and her team \u201cwant people to come in with that intentionality and we want to provide them with the services that help them accomplish whatever that intention is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s a library? Here’s what we found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSherry and Carrie at the Library\u201d \u2014 that’s the library’s custodial dream team of Sherry Lessard and Carrie VanHerzeele, the latter seen vacuuming the floor near the reading area on the first floor. Lessard arrives at 5 a.m., VanHerzeele at 4 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When they\u2019re not busy dusting Ladd\u2019s more than half a million books, Lessard and VanHerzeele are wiping down tables, cleaning windows, and collecting Commons dishes left behind by students. They find any number of misplaced and lost items throughout their shifts and, on two occasions, have found snakes in the library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLittle baby snakes,\u201d VanHerzeele says. \u201cNothing venomous or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A white board affixed to the door of their shared office, featuring stick-figure drawings of both women, serves as a message board between the custodial staff and library patrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat’s their way of communicating with us when we’re not here,\u201d VanHerzeele says. \u201cMost of the time it’s just really nice notes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fifteen minutes before the library opens to Bates students, the usually buzzing main floor of Ladd is completely silent. However, if you open the stairwell you\u2019ll hear a steady scraping of grit on the concrete that tells you Emmon Blackburn \u201926 of Nardin, Okla., has clocked in for work as a stair sweeper, a student job that’s been around for more than a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blackburn is here five days a week at 7 a.m to sweep the three and a half staircases inside Ladd, indie rock playing in their headphones. \u201cIt\u2019s a good job if you can bring yourself to get up early,\u201d Blackburn says. \u201cAnd in the winter it\u2019s early enough I get to see the sunrise, which is nice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the library officially opens, Salem Aqraa \u201927 of Southaven, Miss., is the first one in the door. He\u2019s come straight from his early morning rowing practice, and will shortly begin his shift as an \u201cIT Service Desk Assistant.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working with professional staff at the service desk, he and other student workers offer quick-as-possible fixes for the wide range of technological problems that can beset a couple thousand computer users on a college campus. But, as he says, \u201cmostly it\u2019s printer troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early in the morning, \u201cbarely anyone comes in, so I mostly study. During later shifts I like to talk to people though, especially professors who come in for help more than you would think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ilyas Bashir \u201925 of Auburn, Maine, is the first person to sit down and study in Ladd today. He\u2019s a Chinese and anthropology double major working on his thesis, and usually one of the first people in Ladd. His anthropology thesis looks at how immigrants navigate the healthcare system in Lewiston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lee Desiderio, a member of the IT Service Desk team, raises the shades to begin the day. As an instructional support manager, he helps faculty, students, and staff get and stay up to speed on the rapidly changing technology they use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two juniors from Tuxedo Park, N.Y., Megan Donaghy \u201826 and Lili Missbrenner \u201826, begin their day early by meeting in Ladd. It\u2019s their routine, to enjoy the quiet, the light, and each other\u2019s company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The circulation desk is near the front door, which means that whomever is on duty becomes an unofficial greeter, or concierge, of Ladd Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This morning, it\u2019s Sloan Phillips \u201925 of Evergreen, Colo., who has worked all four years at the campus library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The greeter role, Phillips says, \u201cis kind of nice, to be able to see who’s coming and going and chat with whoever comes in,\u201d and to be able to triage computer questions, printer questions, or research questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI like making small talk. Maybe making them feel a bit better, even if they have to talk with me because they\u2019re waiting for their book. It\u2019s still making a connection with another human.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reserve readings still have an emotional charge, says Phillips. \u201cA sense of difference, they didn\u2019t seek it out for themselves. They\u2019re assigned to it. It\u2019s a different dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simon Clarke \u201925 of Redwood City, Calif., a student worker at the audio desk on Ladd\u2019s ground floor, moves between the mobile shelves containing music and movies, pulling items reserved by students and faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emily Colucci, a library assistant for access services, settles in for a day of work on Ladd\u2019s ground floor in a sea of neatly-organized DVDs, CDs, vinyl records, and cassette tapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A classically trained guitarist and singer, Colucci works in Ladd\u2019s audio\/video area and is currently embarking on a project to digitize the library\u2019s many cassette tapes, several of which contain obscure NPR recordings, broadcasts, and lectures that are only available at Bates and the Library of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The job nicely suits her love of music, as Colucci helps students and faculty check out records for both academic and personal use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLately, I’ve been checking out vinyl to students who have a very vast range of musical interests, which I would suspect they get from their parents,\u201d Colucci says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the stacks on the second floor, we find a familiar face reading the poetry of Jane Kenyon. It\u2019s Professor Emeritus of History Dennis Grafflin, back on campus for one of his bi-weekly visits to Ladd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The library, he says, was his favorite building on campus during his 35-year career as a Bates professor and the spot he most often returns to in his retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe man who hired me, Ernie Muller, who was then chair of the history department all those years ago, was on the committee that designed this library, and it was one of his proudest memories of his time at Bates,\u201d Grafflin says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next up at the circulation desk is Ruslan Peredelskyi \u201925 of Kyiv, Ukraine. A full-service operation, students can check out and return books or items like scissors, light-therapy lamps, and more. Today, he\u2019s also the keeper of a precious lost phone, whose owner comes by to retrieve the missing cell with heaps of thanks to Peredelskyi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While handling books, Peredelskyi gets a front-row view of what faculty and students are working on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey tell you what caught their eye and why they need it, and they tell you about their projects, and it’s really exciting,\u201d Peredelskyi says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When circulation traffic dies down, Peredelskyi, perched behind the desk near the library\u2019s entrance, works on his politics senior thesis and greets students and friends as they filter into Ladd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI get to say \u2018Hi\u2019 to every single person that enters the library,\u201d Peredelskyi says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bates has had only 10 college librarians. The list starts with Horace Cheney, the son of Oren Cheney, founder of the college, who served in the position when was 19 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 10th arrived in 2018, when Pat Schoknecht was appointed college librarian and vice president for information and library services. Here, she meets with Ben Peck, who is the associate college librarian for research services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schoknecht\u2019s title reflects the fact that at Bates, the library and IT are joined. Two librarians before her, Gene Wiemers did the work to intertwine the two, making Bates a national leader in that area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the words of Professor of Sociology Emeritus Sawyer Sylvester, Weimers did more than join the two areas: He \u201cimproved each by that marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Custodian Sherry Lessard shines a bathroom mirror. Lessard and VanHerzeele keep Ladd in great shape for the hundreds of students, faculty, and staff who mill about in the building each day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mariana Kaluba \u201925 a physics major from Lusaka, Zambia, finds that the friendly and social environment of the library helps her get work done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the back of the administrative offices on Ladd\u2019s first floor, Jenn Michel is in book doctor mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the library\u2019s acquisitions and preservation librarian, she is responsible for book conservation \u2014 i.e., repair, including remedying loose or detached spines. In today\u2019s pile for repairs is a particularly charming copy of Jane Eyre<\/em>, with an illustrated front cover and \u201cJe t\u2019aime<\/em>\u201d handwritten on the inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After applying glue to a detached spine, Michel places the book in a hand-operated bookbinding press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The glue is a special pH-neutral adhesive. \u201cWe don’t want acidic materials used at any time during any of the conservation work,\u201d Michel says. \u201cThat would deteriorate the paper products faster, and we want to preserve things for as long as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michel’s work also includes creating pamphlets for music scores, which involves binding sheets of paper into folders. Above, she uses an awl to poke holes through sheet music and its enclosing folder below, then threads a piece of string through the holes and ties a knot to create the binder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Like the glue, this is a string that’s not going to damage paper, and I made this string three times as long as the score,” Michel explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stinky books, be gone! On Ladd\u2019s ground floor, kitty litter and cedar branches make up the secret sauce for removing odors from books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These ingredients rest at the bottom of a large trash can, just below a small laundry hamper fitted within the can. Odorous books sent to the can sit atop the hamper for a couple of weeks, until their smells are absorbed by the litter and branches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While kitty litter is a common tool for removing odors, the cedar branches represent a uniquely Bates technique. Former library assistant Jane Boyle had the idea to use cedar because of its strong, pleasant smell, and the branches in Ladd are still the very ones taken from Boyle\u2019s backyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the window of Instruction Room 128 on the first floor, near the printers, Christine Murray, who is the library\u2019s social sciences librarian, is speaking to students in an anthropology course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The course is \u201cAfter Deportation Ethnographies from Latin America and the Caribbean,\u201d taught by Benoit Y. Vallee, who is a visiting assistant professor of Latin American and Latinx studies. The class usually meets in Roger Williams Hall, but today they\u2019re in the library getting a primer from Murray on the course’s online research guide<\/a>, in preparation for upcoming research papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the class lets out, one of Vallee’s students, Christopher Viza \u201928 of Chicago, gets straight to work, sitting in a chair by the big windows, and trying to get through articles that might inform his paper before his biology lab at noon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Custodians Carrie VanHerzeele and Sherry Lessard return reusable bowls and cups from Commons left in Ladd Library during the previous day\u2019s study activity. Rather than a \u201cno food\u201d policy, the library asks students to help maintain a clean, welcoming space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three seniors \u2014 Natnael Yaregal of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Devendra Thapaliya of Delray Beach, Fla., and Adrian Allannic of New York City \u2014 huddle in the Salter Room on the third floor for a morning spent working on theses and job applications. It\u2019s a good study spot, they say: quiet but still open to group work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Students kick up their feet on Ladd\u2019s first floor, getting comfortable for studying. On a sunny morning in late winter, a spot next to a window affords views of students enjoying the thawing campus and the refreshing, if fleeting, sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One floor below, in the Peer Learning Commons, Noa Hart \u201927 of Hastings on Hudson, N.Y., double majoring in economics and English, is at work in the Peer Learning Commons, where she tutors students in economics but also helps with math, psychology, and statistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen the students have a big conceptual thing that they’re worried about, I try to break it into an example that looks more familiar or maybe they could see in their daily lives,\u201d Hart says. \u201cThese concepts from microeconomics are very abstract, and I say to them, \u2018It’s a different language. It’s nothing you’ve ever seen before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The temperature has barely crept above freezing, but the sunshine beaming down on the terrace outside Ladd draws Bobcats seeking a warm spot in the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One is Olivia Reynolds \u201925 of Cumberland Center, Maine, who is stretched out in front of Ladd, studying Buddhist traditions of death practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cToday, I started hearing the birds outside, and that was my first indication that spring is coming,\u201d Reynolds says. \u201cIt’s been a long and dark winter, and now that we have more light and sun, and it’s just starting to feel like spring, that’s motivating me to be outside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cecilia McQuaid ’25 (left) of San Francisco, Calif., and Abby Marriott ’25 of Brooklyn, N.Y. , take a break from studying and enjoy the sun on the Ladd terrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From left, Cerise Stanley \u201925 of Bentonville, Ark., May Whelan \u201925 of Bristol, R.I., and Liam Shlager \u201926 of Ross, Calif., create a game plan as they look over data related to paid family and medical leave in Maine. The project is for the course \u201cEconomic Analysis for Non-Profits,” taught by Assistant Professor of Economics Austin Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marginalia has been around for centuries (see 1:15 p.m. entry!), and has been the bane of librarians equally as long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you seek out a copy of Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales<\/em> (call number PR1866.S5 1929), you\u2019ll see some ambitious marginalia. Someone decided not only to translate \u201cThe Prologue,\u201d but to do so in pen. They got 11 lines in before giving up.<\/p>\n\n\n Nearby is Virginia Woolf\u2019s A Room of One\u2019s Own<\/em> (PR6045.O72 Z474). More marginalia. A reader circled the book\u2019s feminist manifesto: \u201cI need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also nearby is a copy of Oscar Wilde\u2019s The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em> (PR5819.A2 P43), where marginalia sums up the telling moment when Dorian remembers being watched by James Vane, the brother of Sibyl Vane \u2014 whose death Dorian helped cause. The reader circled this text and wrote, \u201cEvil never will forget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sav Thomson \u201928 (left) of Saint Andrew, Jamaica, and Daina Velez \u201925 of the Bronx, N.Y., lay on one of the square benches on the Ladd terrace enjoying a moment of sunshine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ayden Brusa \u201927 (left) of Skowhegan, Maine, and Madyson Gonzalez \u201925 of Suffern, N.Y., offer assistance at the IT Service Desk on the first floor of the library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Students complement and support the work of the IT Desk\u2019s professional staff. During a typical month in the academic year, the service desk handles upward of 450 tickets for the campus community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the most part, student requests for help often include printing and software problems \u2014 the latter of which can usually be solved with a simple computer restart, says Mamadou Diallo \u201925 of Somersworth, N.H.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Occasionally, the student team gets scam calls or a request that they have to elevate to their superiors, but they are able to resolve most requests on their own, they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMostly, it’s not that difficult,\u201d Diallo says. \u201cIt’s just being able to communicate well with whoever needs help and trying to understand them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can still find some vintage card catalog cabinets in Ladd Library. This one is in the bibliographic area. The card lists annual reports for the Federal Power Commission (now the Department of Energy) dating to 1921.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The entries reflect the fact that the Bates library is an official federal records depository, the first in Maine, in 1883. Because many federal documents were not originally cataloged into an online system, Bates has kept this card catalog in use over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When a library needs to describe a resource for the online catalog \u2014 be it a book, a movie, or music \u2014 metadata librarians like Matt Banning go to work, ensuring that everything is properly described to maximize its “findability.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n On this day, Banning is in his first-floor office working to catalogue Bates\u2019 collection of nearly 2,000 pieces of 19th- and 20th-century sheet music. The antique pieces are less fragile than one would expect, Banning says, though flakes of paper still dot his office floor as he sorts through the collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sheets have traveled far and wide to end up at Ladd. Music collector George W. Harris gifted much of the collection to Bates upon his death in 1904; Bates then sold the collection to Bowdoin, which later returned the sheets to Bates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other sheets arrived all the way from Australia, by way of the collection of Australian-turned-New-Yorker Irma Caron and her husband Marmion P. Greenwood-Adams, an artistic couple who vacationed in Maine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese are really historical documents. They show us what music was popular back in the 1800s and early 1900s,\u201d Banning says. \u201cWe also see this very interesting history of New England. I pay attention to things like signatures that are on them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n From left, seniors Henry Lennig of Scarborough, Maine, Miles Miller of Spring, Texas, and Daniel Snider of Belfast, Maine, \u201cblow off some steam\u201d by playing a geography game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senna Cabenguele, a technology support specialist, dons a \u201cLewiston Strong\u201d hat while working in the IT support area. At Cabenguele\u2019s desk, old technology meets new, evidenced by a vintage Super Nintendo game console sitting beside his computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On his desk, and on those of his colleagues, are various trinkets, relics, and curiosities. Nearby, Nathan Hann has 3D printed objects on his desk that his colleague, Keith Hord, created at home. \u201cI have them for people to play with while I work on their computer,\u201d says Hann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 3D items include a frog, pumpkin, sloth hanging from a tree, an ocarina (a magical instrument from The Legend of Zelda series), and a lizard with a broken tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Midday, community members and Batesies alike gather on Ladd\u2019s first floor to watch Pat Webber, director of the Muskie Archives, \u201cflip the birds\u201d \u2014 a.k.a, change the page displayed from Bates\u2019 copy of John James Audubon\u2019s iconic Birds of America<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLadd Library \u2014 By the Numbers<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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The second-largest academic building on campus behind Pettengill Hall.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Including books, periodicals, documents, and media.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Supporting circulation, peer tutoring, and other services.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Librarians, archivists, tech specialists, and more.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2025\/04\/10_250312_Ladd_Library_0371.webp\")
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\n\n\n\n7:23 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n7:30 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n7:46 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n7:48 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n8:01 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n8:10 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n8:30 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n8:39 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n8:43 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n9:03 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n9:20 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n9:36 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n9:41 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n9:57 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n10:09 a.m. <\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n10:20 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n9:52 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n10:28 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n10:45 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n10:58 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:27 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:29 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:31 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:37 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:53 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:54 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:55 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11:59 a.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n12:09 p.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n12:19 p.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n12:37 p.m.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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