Talk:Robarts Library

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I am removing the urban legend of the sinking library stuff from the article since these are ussualy untrue but common around large biuldings. I also removed the link to the deletion stuff since it was agreed it was vandalism. Cafe Nervosa | talk 23:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

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which year was the Robarts Library officially open? --

Does anyone know if the statistics regarding its place in North America applies to Robarts itself or the U of T library system in general? By "large" is this by number of volumes or physical dimensions? My feeling is that if it is volumes, because a huge number of volumes are housed at other U of T libraries and many floors at Robarts are used only for administration, classrooms, and offices, its probably not third on its own.

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Re the last asker's query, and the "largest" designation in general: it appears to link only to one measure, that of volumes (and NOT titles) added in the past year. Given that we don't even have the criteria for measurement, even if the one factor were meaningful in itself, it's misleading. Aggregate area and/or total holdings? Library of Congress, Univ. of Illinois? Much as I'd like Robarts to be right up there in the ARL stats (as a Canadian and a librarian myself), I know it isn't. I find this statement leads us so far down the garden path as to be mendacious, almost POV. Anyone for verifying against the complete ARL statistics?

99.250.17.70 19:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

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Is it worth mentioning in the article that the Toronto book scanning centre for archive.org is located at Robarts? 13:22, 15 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fantasticmio (talk • contribs)

Cleanup required

Can someone tell me why this tag was placed on this article? EncyclopediaUpdaticus (talk) 23:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Renaming "Naming"

I think there should be a section about the notable student animosity towards Robarts--its notoriety as a cheerless and often dysfunctional institution. Perhaps the (nick)naming section should be moved into a brief section called 'Criticisms', and the mention of Robarts being named after Mr. Robarts can be moved into the intro paragraph. 142.150.120.191 (talk) 20:50, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I have my own reservations about the naming section because in its current form it lacks citations. Therefore most of the uncited names must be removed. If that happens the section will disappear naturally and the few cited names can then be moved to the intro as you suggest. About the student criticism section however I have no opinion. Sure it looks imposing and even forbidding but I wasn't aware of student rancour about it. If anything, from what I know, the interior seems to be rather spacious and the studying facilities and the amenities are not that bad. If you can find reliable citations however about such criticism the edit would be ok. Thanks for your suggestion. Dr.K. (talk) 22:08, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Triangle tessellation is visible on the ceiling, not the floor

Two sentences in the article refer to triangular tessellation of the floor within Robarts:

• "The concrete waffle slab floor plates are adorned with triangular-patterned tessellation."
• "Escalators of the circulation atrium and the ubiquitous triangular tessellation of the floor plates" (photo caption)

Strictly speaking this isn't incorrect (since the floor of one storey is the ceiling of the storey below it), but in practice only the ceiling is visibly tessellated. Also of note is the fact that the photo of the escalators (which is captioned with the second sentence listed above) shows the ceiling, not the floor (this should be clear even to those who have never set foot within Robarts given that the file name is "Robarts_escalators,_looking_up.jpg" and the photo itself clearly shows a recessed ceiling light). 142.20.20.193 (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)