Westward, Ho!

The Geisel Library at UCSD (named after Theodore Geisel, aka Dr Seuss--what other major research campus can say its library is named after Dr Seuss?) is a rather distinctive building, architecturally.

It is the inspiration for the UCSD logo

I'd always thought the odd graphic design was supposed to evoke the image of the stepped decks of a large ship coming into port--since one of UCSD's specialities is marine biology.

But, no. It's an abstraction from the library's facade, which looks like this:

Here is a snippet from an interview with the University Librarian:

Schottlaender: I love the story that Audrey Geisel tells of how she and Ted came up to campus for a walk and first saw the main library. Now remember, in those days this building was much more isolated than it is now; it literally rose up out of the ground. As Audrey recalls, Ted said, “Wow! If I were an architect, that’s the library that I would build.” And so when Ted passed away, Audrey decided that this would be Ted’s library.

There is an old saying in the academic world about the library being at the heart of the institution, and I think that’s always true. Here at UCSD, it is wonderful to work at an institution where that is geographically true—Geisel Library actually is located at the center of campus—and metaphorically true as well, because the abstraction of the library building serves as the campus logo. I don’t know of any other university where that is the case.

and, a closer view, from the entrance area:

From the fifth floor, the study area near the BX3880 section (that would be the books about Episcopal church history, for those of you who don't have your LOC numbers memmorized....) the view is thus....looking northwards. Not a bad view for a campus library!