In putting up its new, Frank Gehry-designed Lewis Library, Princeton University endured its share of challenges. It constructed models of the building to give the subcontractors a chance to practice. It fired a contractor halfway through the job when the building was past due. It learned that some subcontractors were trying to bribe their way onto…

Nancy Fried Foster was an anthropologist hired by University of Rochester's library to study its undergraduates, to help shed light on how they do their research and write papers, and how they spend their days. The results of the study helped guide a library renovation, influenced a Web-site redesign, led to changes in the way the library markets…

This article reports on a library renovation at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona which incurs complaints from professors and librarians about a shift from print to online materials. The $60-million project at Cal Poly is providing a difficult lesson in the challenges of library renovation, and in the changing role of one of the…