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Theodore Wesley Koch and the Charles Deering LibraryLichtenstein's successor, Theodore Wesley Koch, was appointed university librarian on September 1, 1919. Koch, with an A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B. and A.M. from Harvard, had also studied at the College de France at the University of Paris for 2 years. Before coming to Northwestern he was bibliographer of Cornell University Library's Dante Collection, assistant in the Library of Congress Catalog Division, university librarian of University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and chief of the Library of Congress Order Division. During World War I he was active in establishing the American Library Association's War Service for American servicemen.Librarian, author, translator, bibliophile, civic leader, Theodore Wesley Koch was a man of charm, wit, and impressive intellect, qualities which won him many friends and wide recognition throughout a distinguished career. When Koch arrived, the Orrington Lunt Library, built in 1894, had already become totally inadequate. The library had been built to house a collection of 29,000 volumes and 19,000 government publications and for a student body of 500. By 1919 the collection had grown to 120,000 volumes and 90,000 government publications, and the Evanston student population had reached 2,500. Parts of the collection were in storage, in departmental offices or in seminars. The staff of nine, reduced from 15 in 1918, had been demoralized by the abrupt dismissal of Lichtenstein. Book funds were inadequate for the growing university. The collections, weak in many areas, were incapable of supporting faculty research. Koch gave his attention first to the staff, reorganizing and filling positions with key people, many of whom stayed for long periods, providing stability and continuity. He discovered that Effie A. Keith, head of the Catalog Department, was an intelligent and competent administrator. Koch quickly named her assistant librarian, a post which she capably filled throughout his administration. Eleanor Lewis was an excellent head of Reference from 1919. Wintress Brennan, head of the Order Department from 1929, and Mary Hilton, head of Circulation from 1930, were valued colleagues. In Ruth Jackson, his secretary from 1926, he found faithful support. In order to relieve the congestion of the Lunt Library, Koch got more space in the building to be released for library use. Every possible niche was filled with books, and additional storage space was requisitioned. In 1924, 10,000 volumes of the School of Commerce Library were moved out of Lunt to the Commerce Building. Still Lunt's floors sagged and the walls cracked with the weight of the books. Outdated wiring constantly threatened fire. Rallying faculty and student support, Koch relentlessly petitioned the administration for a new building. In 1929, when a bequest from Charles Deering, supplemented with gifts from other members of his family, made a new building a certainty, Koch threw himself enthusiastically into all aspects of the planning, working closely with architect James Gamble Rogers. Located between the lakefront and a broad meadow fronting Sheridan Road, the Charles Deering Library was built of Lannonstone trimmed with Indiana Bedford limestone in modified Gothic style inspired by King's College, Cambridge. The three-story building, which included a six-level stack tier, cost $1,250,000. The main entrance opened into a lobby lined with exhibit cases. To the left was the Reserve Reading Room and to the right the Commerce Library. Stairways to the top floor led to a spacious central room which provided access to the Main Reading Room, the Periodical Room, the Public Catalog, and the Circulation Desk. Througout the library, wood and stone carvings by Rene P. Chambellan symbolized the world of learning: the owl, the hourglass, the open book, the pen, and many others; as well as the Deering coat of arms, seals of the university and the State of Illinois, and bas-reliefs of University President Scott and Librarian Koch. In the centers of the large windows were colored glass medallions by the artist G. Owen Bonawit depicting several personages including many associated with the history of the old Northwest and figures from literature. Carved, linen-fold oak screens surmounted by life-like birds and beasts separated the lobby from the Main Reading Room and the Periodical Room. The building incorporated Koch's ideas in many of its features: the separate government publications department, the rare book room, the Browsing Room, research carrels, the book exhibit area, seminar rooms, and efficient book stacks. There was seating for 900 in four large reading rooms, and shelving for 500,000 volumes excluding space for government publications. Although Koch realized the need for a larger building, budget restrictions made that impossible. At the time of the move into Deering the collection totaled 230,000 volumes and 190,000 government publications. Annual accessions grew from 8,500 volumes in 1919 to 16,000 in 1931-32. The departmental libraries of the social sciences and humanities, which had been cared for by the departmental secretaries and only infrequently monitored by the Circulation Department, were consolidated in Deering. The Commerce Library was moved to Deering's second floor from the Commerce Building, retaining its separate identity. Because the building promised to be adequate for only a decade, plans for future expansion included an additional six levels of the book stacks or extension of the building to the east; neither option was ever implemented. In spite of having secured a new building, the remainder of Koch's term was not easy. Always hampered by lack of sufficient book funds, Koch also faced the Depression, which not only forced the university twice to reduce salaries by 10%, but also to cut back the book appropriation from $42,500 to $24,500. To partially offset the reductions in the book fund, Koch turned to friends of the library and to book lovers outside the university. As a result, it was not uncommon during his administration to find that the number of gift volumes often equaled that of volumes purchased. In other ways, too, Koch used book funds with careful stewardship. For example, in 1934, on a trip to London at his own expense, Koch bought many books at Depression prices. Through his efforts the Biblioteca Femina collection of 3,000 volumes, assembled for the International Conclave of Women Writers of the International Congress of Women held in Chicago in 1933, was deposited at Northwestern. The Schwitkis Collection of 9,500 volumes of German literature was a gift in 1938. In addition he solicited gifts or loans of paintings and busts for the building, and statues, shrubs, and trees for the sunken gardens. Koch was always deeply involved both in university activities and those of the library profession. A member of several standing university committees, he particularly relished the duties as chairman of the Harris Lecture Committee of Northwestern. Under his leadership in the 1920s and 30s, Evanston audiences enjoyed hearing and meeting men of letters like John Livingston Lowes and J. Middleton Murry, historians like Arnold Toynbee, biologists like Julian Huxley, archaeologists like Sir Rennell Rodd, as well as spokesmen for currents of European thought ranging from Bernard Fay to Count Carlo Sforza. In his long tenure at Northwestern from 1919 to 1941, Koch was responsible for many changes and improvements in the quality and operations of the NU Library. In the same period that the Evanston campus student population increased from 3,000 to 5,000 and the faculty from 220 to 330, Koch built the collection from 120,000 to 377,000 volumes. The annual circulation grew from 220,000 in 1931 to 320,000 in 1940. Koch died on March 23, 1941, at the age of 69; he was to have retired on August 31. Northwestern University President Franklyn B. Snyder led the memorial service and gave the address at the First Congregational Church of Evanston. Koch's ashes were buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery, Ann Arbor, Michigan. So great was the response from Koch's friends that a substantial memorial book fund was established for rare and finely printed books for the Charles Deering Library. The gardens of the library, carefully planned by him, were renamed the Koch Memorial Gardens.
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