Alexandria Revisited: Another Look at Space and Growth

A little over a decade ago, a major library problem was formulated in arresting and witty terms. The growth of library collections, and the consequent pressure for growth of library buildings, was the subject of a conference of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest; and the conference, which proved to be seminal to the next decade of managerial thought, proclaimed that we were “Touching Bottom in the Bottomless Pit.” So we bade Farewell to Alexandria—that is, to the purported dream of all libraries, infinite expansion. In the same period the University Grants Committee of Great Britain was studying the same question. They, with the authority of the governmental voice, mandated a fixed size for British university libraries—a “no growth” policy. In the ensuring years, “no growth” has been a policy for some libraries, an uncomfortable physical fact for many others.