Bass Library
Coordinates: 41°18′38″N 72°55′39″W / 41.31065°N 72.9276°W
The Anne T. & Robert M. Bass Library, formerly Cross Campus Library, is a Yale University Library building holding frequently-used materials in the humanities and social sciences. Located underneath Yale University's Cross Campus, it was completed in 1971 in a minimalist-functionalist style designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes. In 2007, Thomas Beeby led a multimillion-dollar renovation of the library that extensively reconfigured and refurbished its interior space.
In addition to its book collection, Bass contains many reading and studying spaces, a large computer lab, and an area for books held in reserve.
In 1967, an extension of Sterling Memorial Library was proposed to expand the library's space for collections. Though originally proposed to house the library's East Asian collection and Yale memorabilia, librarians decided instead to utilize the new space to improve access to frequently-used materials and reserve books. So as not to interrupt the view of the Sterling facade from the east, the library would be constructed beneath the lawn of Cross Campus, the central axis of Yale's campus. To allow for sufficient light underground, architect Edward Larrabee Barnes proposed to sink sixteen skylights into the Cross Campus lawn. When the design was made public in 1968, Yale students and faculty, including Vincent Scully, protested that the skylights would obstruct the lawn's open space, and students physically blocked early construction activities. Barnes and the university withdrew the original design and instead configured a lighting scheme with four large entrance light wells at the corners of Cross Campus. The new library, opened in January 1971 at a cost of $4 million, housed 300,000 volumes and remained open 24 hours a day.
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