<p>I have not yet read the PR criteria, and I agree there are other important features of library quality besides size. But how do you fairly, objectively measure them? How do you weigh the value of robotic retrieval, a feature that someone else mentioned but that I don’t especially care about (not that I’m anti-technology, but it sounds like a gimmick and I’d rather see the money go into books).</p>
<p>So I’m with Alexandre. As he points out, an institution that pours money into assembling massive collections very likely also will have excellent facilities. Number of volumes is, if nothing else, a convenient, fair, and relevant metric. For scholarship, though, size really does matter. It’s not just about bragging rights. It’s about the likelihood of finding materials on some subject at the boundaries of what is already known.</p>
<p>I think Whitman College is a fine school and I don’t doubt they have an excellent library. I do seriously doubt, however, that its library ranks up there with Harvard’s massive system.</p>
<p>Having said all that, I admit I’ve been in smaller libraries where I’d rather spend my study time than in Harvard’s Widener (as I remember it from years ago). Middlebury College, for example, has a beautifully designed new library.</p>