The Class of 1893 Memorial Gate, the iron portal that once stood between Williams Hall and Houston Hall , bore this motto: "Inveniemus viam aut faciemus." "Either we will find a way, or we will make one."

The gate is now gone--safely stored away during Logan Hall's renovations--but Paul H. Mosher remembers its words well. And, as Penn's vice provost and director of libraries, he has found inspiration in their message, for he believes that it epitomizes the University's entrepreneurial spirit.

"I've really taken it to heart," he said.

Taken it to heart and put it into practice, a fact proven last month with the opening of the completely refurbished Lippincott Library of the Wharton School. Mosher calls the latest addition of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Wing "the most-advanced business library in the United States."

An impressive claim, and not one Mosher could always make. He admits that the old business library lagged behind the times. Michael Halperin, Lippincott's director, agrees.

"The library was split," he said. "We had reserve books and circulation on the first floor, and reference on the second floor on the northwest side of the building. It was really dysfunctional."

The renovated Lippincott, on the other hand, houses a wealth of electronic and traditional resources in a single 20,000-square-foot facility. "The point was to integrate all of the information that the students and the faculty need in the most-advanced possible way so that they don't have to run all over the place physically or have to surf through the mountain of irrelevant advertising on the Web to find something useful," Mosher explained.

Renovations took nine months. Preparations took seven years. Mosher laid the foundation for the current facility when he first came to Penn in 1989. He wanted to revamp Van Pelt-Dietrich, and the business library seemed like a good place to start.

"He saw that Van Pelt-Dietrich needed fundamental change in the way services were arranged, stacks were arranged, staff space was arranged," Halperin said. "Lippincott was key to this. Once we moved and made our initial change, then he could start to move the other pieces around."

With no funding readily available, however, Mosher had to find another way to finance a new facility. And he did.

"The entire library was built using outside contributions from individual donors, without using University money," he said.

"Inveniemus viam aut faciemus," he added with a smile.

Typically, prominently placed plaques honor donors, but this traditional accolade would seem almost passé in a library as technologically sophisticated as Lippincott. In the modern business library, screen savers acknowledge generosity.

Whenever a computer stands idle, the Safra family name and the Republic National Bank logo appear on its blackened screen. This protects the screen from phosphor damage, while thanking those who made the Safra Business Research Center--the heart of the Lippincott Library--possible.

Not that the screen savers get much use. The computer carrels aren't empty often. Even as visitors sipped coffee and nibbled bagels during the opening-day festivities, Wharton students were taking advantage of the new equipment--their hard work a stark contrast to the red and blue balloons that drifted lazily overhead.

The library boasts 32 Pentium-class workstations connected to 100 databases, putting a vast amount of information at a user's fingertips. The computers also have access to the Lippincott Web page, which is linked to hundreds of Web sites relevant to Wharton faculty and staff. Lippincott librarians check for new Web sites daily, confirm the accuracy of each site, and make sure that the sites remain on-line.

Students who don't want to work on the library's computers can bring their own. Lippincott has 44 stations with electrical and network connections for laptop computers. Eight laser printers stand ready to output hard copy, and three dedicated CD-ROM stations offer additional computing power.

More equipment might be forthcoming. The library might install scanners next, so students could store book pages and manuscripts on disk. However, no purchases will be made without careful consideration. Mosher plans to keep the library "on the trailing edge," and that requires wise investments.

"We follow the leaders--up to a point," he said. "And we watch for the systems that work well, then we integrate and improve them. The net effect is to make Penn the leader."

Although Mosher wanted to transform the Lippincott Library into a state-of-the-art facility, he realized that high-end equipment serves little purpose if no one uses it. That's why his ultimate goal was to give Wharton faculty and students "an extremely comfortable and dignified place to work"--something that the old business library definitely wasn't.

"It had really lived its life," Mosher said. "It had all the charm of a bus depot."

The new Lippincott offers the aesthetic appeal and comfort its predecessor lacked. Thomas Moser, a renowned furniture company from Maine, made the library's carrels, tables, shelves and chairs from cherry wood. Soft lighting, designed especially to work well with computer screens, illuminates the facility. Seven soundproof conference rooms give students a place to confer without disturbing others in the library.

Renovations at Lippincott may have come to an end, but, for the rest of Van Pelt, it's just the beginning. The new business library is the future of the entire library. All of Van Pelt can soon expect similar overhauls.

"Lippincott is the flagship of the new library, in which electronic resources are integrated with necessary paper resources in an environment that is ideal for study," Mosher said. "I really want to turn Van Pelt into a paradise for students and faculty."

Return to Compass Features for April 16, 1996